38 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 
of milk was responsible for the death of the babies. However, 
the results from the most careful studies of this subject fail 
to substantiate this view. Park,2* in studying conditions in 
New York, found that while under tenement house conditions 
high germ content milk and fatalities among the babies were 
commonly associated there were likewise present many other 
factors inimical to the health of the baby. On the other hand 
in baby hospitals where the germ content of the milk supply 
was uniformly high but good general care was given the 
babies, their health was satisfactory. Williams?’ later made 
a careful study of all baby deaths during one year in Roches- 
ter, N. Y. He concluded that the milk supply could be 
directly connected with only a small portion of such deaths. 
Price,”® by instructing the mothers, reduced the baby death 
rate in Detroit to a low level without changing the character 
of the milk supply. 
On the other hand, it is generally agreed that bottle-fed 
babies are prone to digestive disturbances which are usually 
attributed to something connected with the milk since that is 
practically their sole source of nourishment. 
It has often been asserted that these digestive troubles were 
due to the presence of large numbers of germs in the milk. 
On the other hand, when these same ailing infants are placed 
upon a diet of milk containing immense numbers of germs, 
their digestive disturbances usually promptly vanish. This 
would seem to dispose of the argument that their original 
trouble was duc to the mere presence in milk of large numbers 
of germs. 
Logically, the next suggestion is that the difficulty with 
the babies is due, not to the germs themselves, but to the 
changes which the germs bring about in the milk. The 
2... H. Park and L. E. Holt, Report upon the Results with Different 
Kinds of Pure and Impure Milk in Infant Feeding in Tenement Houses 
and Institutions in New York City, Dept. of Health, City of N. Y., Am. 
Rept. (1902), pp, 275-299, 1904. 
7 J. R. Williams, A Study of Infant Mortality in Rochester. The Rela- 
lion of Market Milk Thereto in N. Y. Med. Jour., July 18, 1912. 
*“W. H. Price, Some Statistics Regarding Infant Mortality. in Aw. 
Repl,, Int. Asso, Dairy and Milk Inspectors, 3, pp. 95-108, 1915. 
