BOILED MILK OF THE SAME SPECIES 165 



Finkelstein mentions that he fed six babies upon boiled 

 mother's milk, and found that they did not do so well as upon 

 the raw human milk, and concludes therefore that the milk of 

 the same species loses some of its value^ by boiling ; in contra- 

 distinction to that of a foreign species. He does not give any 

 data upon this point. 



The most numerous cases I have been able to discover are those 

 of Professor Thiemich of Magdeburg. They are unfortunately 

 as yet unpublished, although the data are available, but Professor 

 Thiemich was so kind as to give permission to me to quote his 

 experiences for the purpose of my report to the L.G.B. He 

 furnished me with a short report of his results, as follows : ' In my 

 wards the milk of all the new wet-nurses is given boiled only, until 

 Wasserman's and Stern's reactions 1 have been carried out. 



' If it happens, as it frequently does, that one or other of the 

 reactions is positive or doubtful, and there is no detectable evidence 

 of specific trouble in either mother or child, I sometimes keep the 

 wet-nurse for many months, and during the whole of this period 

 her milk is only given boiled. I may add that in the case of an 

 infant living with its parents which requires a wet-nurse or human 

 milk for " allaitement mixte " it is only in very exceptional cases 

 that I allow actual suckling. Otherwise only expressed and boiled 

 milk, human milk, is given by the bottle in suitable quantities. 

 Similarly the milk of a feverish wet-nurse is boiled, not because 

 of the risk of the direct passage of any organisms in the milk, 

 but because of the possibility of outside contamination of the milk. 



' On this system I have now seen a great number of children 

 improve just as well upon boiled human milk, as happens with 

 raw human milk. 



' In a smaller number of cases raw and boiled human milk 

 have been given alternately and systematically for various periods 

 of days and wet ks with the same result, namely, that no difference 

 could be detected.' 



The data are not extensive, and while no decisive pronounce- 

 ment can be made upon the subject there is considerable evidence 

 that no marked impairment in nutritive value is produced by 

 boiling human milk. 



2. Cows' Milk. The evidence as to the nutritive value 

 of boiled cows' milk for calves is of a very similar nature to that 

 in the case of human milk. 



Ttn detailed experiments have with one notable exception 

 (Hittcher) all been on a very small number of calves. Where, 

 as in Denmark, the experiment has been conducted upon a large 

 scale, no precise data are available. An account of the investi- 

 gations is given in chronological order. 



The first work appears to be that by Gerlach, wno found 

 that calves fed upon boiled milk from birth did not do well after 



1 Stern's reaction is a modification of Wassermann's, and apparently 

 sometimes clears up a doubtful diagnosis obtained by Wassermann's method. 



