38 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 



of milk was responsible for the death of the babies. However, 

 the results from the most careful studies of this subject fail 

 to substantiate this view. Park,- in studying conditions in 

 New York, found that while under tenement house conditions 

 high germ content milk and fatalities among the babies were 

 commonly associated there were likewise present many other 

 factors inimical to the health of the baby. On the other hand 

 in baby hospitals where the germ content of the milk supply 

 was uniformly high but good general care was given the 

 babies, their health was satisfactory. Williams 27 later made 

 a careful study of all baby deaths during one year in Roches- 

 ter, N. Y. He concluded that the milk supply could be 

 directly connected with only a small portion of such deaths. 

 Price, 28 by instructing the mothers, reduced the baby death 

 rate in Detroit to a low level without changing the character 

 of the milk supply. 



On the other hand, it is generally agreed that bottle-fed 

 babies are prone to digestive disturbances which are usually 

 attributed to something connected with the milk since that is 

 practically their sole source of nourishment. 



It has often been asserted that these digestive troubles were 

 due to the presence of large numbers of germs in the milk. 

 On the other hand, when these same ailing infants are placed 

 upon a diet of milk containing immense numbers of germs, 

 their digestive disturbances usually promptly vanish. This 

 would seem to dispose of the argument that their original 

 trouble was due to the mere presence in milk of large numbers 

 of germs. 



Logically, the next suggestion is that the difficulty with 

 the babies is due, not to the germs themselves, but to the 

 changes which the germs bring about in the milk. The 



20 W. H. Park and L. E. Holt, Report upon the Results with Different 

 Kinds of Pure and Impure Milk in Infant Feeding in Tenement Houses 

 and Institutions in Neiv York City, Dept. of Health, City of N. Y., Ann. 

 Rept. (1902), pp. 275-299, 1904. 



27 J. R. Williams, A Study of Infant Mortality in Rochester. The Rela- 

 tion of Market Milk Thereto in N. Y. Med. Jour., July 13, 1912. 



- s W. H. Price, Some Statistics Regarding Infant Mortality in Ann. 

 Rept., Int. Asso. Dairy and Milk Inspectors, 3, pp. 95-103, 1915. 



