402 THE FOOD VALUES OF MILK 



northern races, where dairying is common ; yet we find that ap- 

 proximately one-third of all the school children of America are 

 now under weight and backward in school, and, not infrequently 

 too, perverse in disposition ; all of which conditions may, to the 

 extent of 97 per cent, be cured by the liberal use of milk. The 

 physical condition and mental status of all the children in the 

 eighth grade in one of America's largest cities were recently 

 studied, and it was found that those children who had been ac- 

 customed to drinking milk averaged two years younger than 

 the group in the same grade who were being deprived of milk 

 during their growing years. Manifestly, then, it would be 

 good business on the part of the governing boards of our city 

 schools to see to it that the children receive a glass of milk morn- 

 ing and afternoon, in order that they may be sufficently strong 

 to make their grades rapidly. The children of the rich as well as 

 of the poor, and of the country even more than of the city, are 

 handicapped by faulty nutrition and milk will correct ninety- 

 seven per cent of these ills. Truly, if modern science had 

 discovered a new substance (as radium for cancer) which con- 

 tained all the elements for physical growth and health, and 

 the actual cure of many specific ills, and also caused weak child- 

 ren to gain or regain mental stamina and place in school, if this 

 were a new substance and were made as available and as inex- 

 pensive as milk is, the newspapers, the medical journals, and the 

 health magazines of the world would herald it and urge its use, 

 and societies would be formed to see that no family went without 

 it. What is milk that these things are true ? 



WHAT IS MILK ? 



Milk is a complex mixture of compounds, each class or group 

 of which serves its particular purpose in the building of the 

 animal body. The chart, Fig. 130, indicates roughly the com- 

 position of average cow's milk, the nutritive uses that each 

 food class serves, and approximately the length of time required 

 for the normal body to digest and derive benefit from it. 



How thoughtful of old Mother Nature to arrange easily 

 digested food (sugar and albumin) for the tired infant and 



