1 64 MILK AND ITS HYGIENIC RELATIONS 



Two children, both premature, were fed at the breast of a 

 wet-nurse until it was evident that they were doing well, and the 

 weight-curve showed a daily satisfactory increase. This was 

 for a period of three days. The children then received the milk 

 after it had been expressed and kept cool, all aseptic precautions 

 being taken. Both children showed a transient loss of weight, 

 but in a few days the weight curve again began to rise, and showed 

 a steady increase. This period lasted five days. 



The expressed milk was now heated to 60 C. for half an hour, 

 and was then stored in the cold room for use as required. The 

 period of this form of feeding lasted seventeen days, and the weight- 

 curve showed a steady rise throughout the entire period, nor could 

 a disturbance of any kind be detected. After this, the wet-nurses 

 being no longer available, the children received boiled cows' milk, 

 and the weight-curves continued to rise just as steadily as with 

 the boiled human milk. 



The author considers that these children are no criterion, since 

 they did as well upon boiled cows' milk as upon human milk, 

 and thus he says were evidently capable of manufacturing their 

 own ' protective substances.' The basis for this statement is 

 hardly satisfactory. 



E. Miiller (1908) carried out a very interesting experiment 

 upon a child under his care. This baby was premature and weakly, 

 and was twenty-five days old when it came under his treatment. 

 The child was first of all put upon the breast of a wet nurse, and 

 made very little progress, the average gain in weight being 12 

 grammes per day. The baby was therefore put upon a diet of 

 raw human whey and raw cows' fat and casein ; this feeding was 

 continued for five days, during which time the child gained weight 

 at the rate of 44 grammes per day. The author considered this 

 increased gain in weight due to the increase of protein material 

 in the food. Next it received cows' whey and human fat and 

 casein, both raw, for fourteen days, but the results obtained were 

 not similar throughout the period. For the first five days the 

 child made good progress and put on weight at the rate of 33 

 grammes per day, but during the last nine days it only gained 

 30 grammes in the whole period. There was also a tendency to 

 diarrhoea. It was then put back upon human whey and cows' 

 casein and fat, and again made good progress, gaining 17 grammes 

 per day for three days. The human whey was now boiled and 

 mixed with the cows' casein and fat, and the child gained in weight 

 at the rate of 15 grammes per day for thirty-three days. It would 

 seem, therefore, that no harm was done to the nutritive properties 

 of the human whey by boiling. 



Miiller points out that the upholders of the theory of ' pro- 

 tective substances' in milk all agree that these are present in 

 the whey ; hence this case in which he fed a weakly child with 

 success upon boiled whey (in which presumably these same sub- 

 stances, if present, were destroyed) is of considerable interest. 



