20 THE MODERN MILK PROBLEM 



When milk of average quality was fed sterilized * and raw, 

 those infants who received milk previously heated did, on 

 the average, much better in warm weather than those who 

 received it raw. The difference was so quickly manifest and 

 so marked that there could be no mistaking the meaning of 

 the results. The bacterial content of the milk used in the 

 test was somewhat less than in the average milk of the city. 



The study just quoted, while not conclusive in all 

 details, may be taken as roughly indicative of the effects 

 of good and of bad milk, of raw and of pasteurized 

 market milk, on infants. We need not go into the 

 complex question of the mechanism of the effects of 

 bad milk on the delicate infant organism. Specific 

 germs may cause gastro-intestinal disorders and mal- 

 nutrition in infants, and excessive numbers of germs of 

 any kind are dangerous. The reason for the greater 

 prevalence of such maladies and of the greater infant 

 mortality during the summer months is: (1) That dur- 

 ing that season milk is much more likely to be fer- 

 mented, and (2) that warm weather lowers the vital 

 resistance of the infant organism so as to induce gastro- 

 intestinal disturbances. While the latter of these 

 factors may indeed be the more important, attention 

 must be paid to both. 



Such considerations as we have now viewed are sub- 

 stantiated in the experience of physicians and are re- 

 flected, though to an indeterminate extent, in the statis- 

 tics of infant mortality already cited. 



It would be desirable to know the exact weight of 

 milk supply in infant hygiene, a weight which un- 

 doubtedly has been exaggerated in some quarters. 



* Heated to 165 F. for 30 minutes. 



