62 The Philippine Journal of Science im 



physician because of the lack of suitable domestic infant food. 

 Some mothers go to the extreme of long-continued nursing at 

 the expense of their own health in order to preserve and 

 strengthen, they say, the alimentary tract of their babies, with 

 the result that both mother and child become rachitic. As an 

 example of this, two years ago I was called by a middle-class fam- 

 ily to see the youngest child, who was 1 year and 8 months old 

 and entirely breast-fed. The parents told me that the child had 

 an evening rise of temperature and sweating and did not thrive 

 well ; physicians had been consulted and oxypathor applied, with- 

 out any result. I examined the milk of the mother, who was a 

 multipara, and found that it was watery, and by simply giving 

 artificial feeding, the child became well. We have also the other 

 extreme, where young infants are fed with soft-boiled rice, bana- 

 nas, and almost everything that is found on the family table. 



But the worse cases are the children of the poor and ignorant 

 mothers. If the milk is suspected to be the cause of "taol" or 

 infantile beriberi and the mothers are advised to give two tea- 

 spoonfuls of condensed milk diluted in boiled water to their in- 

 fants, they keep giving the same formula for weeks and months, 

 with the result that the child has been probably saved from 

 infantile beriberi to become a victim of malnutrition and finally 

 of gastroenteritis. 



Our records contain 207 cases that showed anatomically some 

 lesion in the alimentary tract, without including those due to 

 tuberculosis or Asiatic cholera. The most frequent associated 

 lesions were those of the respiratory tract. Not counting tuber- 

 culosis, there were 63 cases of bronchopneumonia, 5 of lobar 

 pneumonia, and 5 with abscesses in the lungs. The next in 

 frequency is otitis media, 15 cases. The lesions as to location in 

 the tract are as follows: 



Acute catarrhal gastritis, 9 cases. Four of these were asso- 

 ciated with bronchopneumonia, 1 with lobar pneumonia, 1 with 

 chronic colitis, and still another with catarrhal duodenitis and 

 cholecystitis in a burn case. 



Gastroenteritis, 26 cases. Twelve of these were chronic and 4 

 associated with colitis and bronchopneumonia, 7 with broncho- 

 pneumonia, 2 with otitis media, and 1 in a male infant of 22 days 

 associated with stomatitis. 



Acute enteritis, 38 cases. Six of these were ulcerative, 1 of 

 these being caused by tjT)hoid, and 3 were membranous. Six 

 cases were complicated with bronchopneumonia, 5 with tuber- 

 culosis of the lungs, 1 with empysema, and 1 with suppurative 

 meningitis. One had also oxyuriasis. The last is a 5-day-old 



