66 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



tions of the relation of infant dietetics to the com- 

 parative anatomy of the digestive tract have revolu- 

 tionized the whole science of infant feeding. He has 

 conclusively demonstrated that the milk of each spe- 

 cies is suited to the structural character of the diges- 

 tive apparatus. He points out that in each of the 

 species the " milk of the mother behaves in the young 

 animal's stomach very much as the food of the mother 

 behaves in her stomach." " By this method, he 

 believes, the young animal is being taught to digest 

 its food in just the same way as it must when it is 

 grown up. 



The cow, the goat, and the sheep have each four 

 stomachs. Taken together, these four stomachs 

 form about 70 per cent of the digestive tract. But 

 while the horse and the ass eat much the same kind 

 of food as the cow and the sheep, they have only 

 one stomach, which forms about 8 or 9 per cent of the 

 digestive tract. This stomach holds less than one- 

 half of a meal. Like the horse and the ass, man has 

 but a single stomach, and this forms about 20 per cent 

 of the digestive tract as compared with 70 per cent in 

 the case of the cow and only 8 or 9 per cent in the case 

 of the horse.'^ Do these great variations in the kind 

 and size of the digestive organs of the different species 

 mean anything? do they signify variations in the 

 manner of digesting food which will help us to ex- 

 plain why it is that so many infants die every 



