THE SUPPLY OF PURE MILK 297 



There seems to be no doubt that good milk, freshly 

 boiled, is satisfactory. But the constant use of sterilized 

 milk and so-called Pasteurized milk, as well as inferior 

 " watered " and more or less stale milk, is frequently the 

 cause of infantile scurvy. Something is destroyed in 

 the milk by prolonged heating which is necessary for 

 its proper action as a food. The addition to the milk 

 of a small quantity of fresh meat-juice or beetroot- juice 1 

 appears to replace this destroyed matter, and to prevent 

 malnutrition and scurvy. And thus the babies are 

 rescued from " infantile scurvy." Here, again, it is a 

 question of the presence of a minimal quantity of an 

 easily destroyed proteid, which is necessary to start the 

 nutritional process and to keep it going. 



A very interesting case of the unsuspected influence 

 of minute quantities of such a " proteid " body (that is, 

 a body like casein and albumen, but higher in the 

 complexity of its chemical structure and nearer to the 

 readily destroyed chemical complexity of living matter 

 itself) has lately been discovered. In the East, especially 

 amongst Chinese "coolies" and other people who feed 

 on rice, a very troublesome disease is known, called 

 " Beri-beri." It is chiefly marked by pains all over 

 the body, lassitude, and debility, and renders its victims 

 unfit for labour, and so causes great inconvenience to 

 employers of " Chinese cheap labour." All sorts of 

 causes have been suggested for it. But it has now been 

 found that it is due to the feeding of the coolies with 

 " polished rice." This is an inferior rice, the grains of 

 which have become (by bad, damp storage) rough and 

 powdery on the suiface. The bad rice grain is purchased 

 by dealers and shaken up and sifted so as to get rid of 

 this dull surface, and is then known as "polished rice." 



1 Recent experiment shows that neither meat-juice nor beetroot is effective ; 

 orange-juice or juice of swedes or of turnips are best (1919). 



