460 '^fi^ Philippine Journal of Science * mi 



FOOD SITUATION 



The under-developed and under-nourished condition of the 

 great masses of the Filipino people is due to a number of causes, 

 the principal one being insufficient quantity and injudicious 

 variety of foodstuffs employed. The cause of the enormous in- 

 fluence of the faulty nutrition of the mothers upon infant mortal- 

 ity, directly and indirectly, is one of the most important 

 subjects within the scope of any investigation of this character. 

 The small amount of data accumulated to date does not warrant 

 definite conclusions, but a brief consideration of some of the 

 facts is indicated. 



Without going into the question of the much-discussed in- 

 fluence of special varieties of rice upon health and m.ortaUtj', we 

 may discuss the much larger question of the influence of me- 

 tabolism disturbances, due to nutritional errors, upon infant 

 mortality. As will be seen in another place in this report, the 

 mortahty in breast-fed children is higher than it is among chil- 

 dren artificially fed. This condition, so far as we know, is pecul- 

 iar to the Philippine Islands. The logical, and we believe the 

 correct, explanation of this is the deficiency in quantity and 

 quality of mothers' milk. So far as ordinary analysis shows the 

 breast milk of Filipina mothers is of satisfactory quality for 

 nutritional purposes. However, certain diseases (particularly 

 infantile beriberi) are generally believed to be caused by some 

 abnormality of mothers' milk. In a considerable number of 

 cases studied from the chnics of the Philippine General Hospital, 

 deficient quantity has been a rather constant finding. When 

 these facts are considered, together with the under-nourished 

 condition of the majority of the mothers due to the ravages of 

 disease, we must conclude that faulty nutrition of the mothers is 

 one of the principal factors in the enormous mortality of breast- 

 fed children. The correction of this condition resolves itself into 

 a discussion of methods for the improvement of the quantity and 

 quality of mothers' milk and of the artificial feeding of babies. 



In individual cases and to meet the immediate demands, satis- 

 factory artificial feeding offers the obvious solution of the ques- 

 tion. However, such a policy applied to the whole country would, 

 eventually, lead to conditions more unwholesome than are those 

 of the present time, and the ultimate solution of the problem, 

 therefore, must depend upon improvement in the nutrition of the 

 race. There are not in history more pathetic examples of un- 

 availing self-sacrifice than are daily seen in our large clinics, of 

 poor, half-starved, under-nourished mothers attempting to supply 



