464 I'he Philippine Journal of Science viii. b, u 



variety of this life-giving food practicable of extensive employ- 

 ment in this country, at least at the present time. 



Fortunately, conditions are not so bad as they would appear at 

 first sight. Sterilized milk when used under proper conditions is 

 a very satisfactory food for infants, and is just as satisfactory 

 for all other purposes as is raw milk, and another fortunate 

 circumstance is that the Philippine Islands enjoys a splendid 

 market of imported sterilized, natural, and condensed milks of 

 excellent quality at very reasonable prices; so that, as pointed 

 out by me in an article presented to the Congress of Filipino 

 Physicians, the milk supply of the Philippine Islands compares 

 very favorably with that of many other countries and cities. 

 It is a fact that sterilized milks are a little more indigestible than 

 are raw milks, and there are certain metabolism conditions, for 

 example, scurvy, that may be incurred as a result of the use 

 of sterilized food. However, both the indigestibility and the 

 metabolism-disturbing qualities of such milk are easily and satis- 

 factorily controlled by simple methods well-known to the medical 

 profession. These methods are so successful that in one series 

 of records of more than. 1,000 babies born in the Philippine Is- 

 lands, and fed entirely on these sterilized foods, there has not 

 been a single case of metabolism disturbance nor a death from 

 disease of importance that could be justly attributed to the use 

 of such food. 



It may be of interest to note that there was imported into the 

 Philippine Islands during the fiscal year 1912, an equivalent of 

 between 18 and 20 million kilograms of milk, at an approximate 

 valuation of 15,000,000 pesos.^ 



METHODS OP ARTIFICIAL FEEDING 



The methods employed in the artificial feeding of infants 

 among the poor people of Manila are faulty in many particulars. 

 In the first place, notwithstanding the accessibility of a very 

 good milk supply, the foods supplied to children in a majority 

 of cases are those of condensed, sweetened, skimmed milk of 

 the cheapest varieties, and consequently poor in quality. In 

 another place I have discussed this subject at length.^ In this 

 report it was shown that the apparent economy in the use of 

 this food, figured from a financial basis alone, is not a true 

 economy, because milk compounds of this class contain from 

 50 to 65 per cent of ordinary sugar. When the caloric value of 



'' In United States currency, 7,500,000 dollars. 



' Proceedings of the Congress of Filipino Physicians, held in Manila this 

 year. 



