74 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



infant food. The milk of the cow is generally used 

 in this country, though it is in some respects inferior 

 to goat's milk. But whether cow's milk or goat's 

 milk be employed, it must be modified to make it as 

 nearly like human milk as possible, alike as to its 

 nutrient qualities, the manner of its digestion, and 

 the content of ferments which aid and stimulate 

 assimilation. This is the task to which the modem 

 physiological chemist and the physician must address 

 themselves. There can be no reasonable doubt that 

 the standard which Nature sets is the one which should 

 be aimed at ; that the nearer we get to human milk, 

 the more satisfactory the result will be. 



It is no part of my purpose to provide mothers and 

 nurses with a manual of instruction in the practice 

 of infant feeding. We are concerned with the prob- 

 lem in its social and political aspects only. If many 

 of our excursions into the realms of chemistry, physi- 

 ology, pathology, and bacteriology seem at first to 

 be foreign to that purpose, it will require but little 

 reflection to show that these are very important 

 phases of the problem we are trying to solve, the 

 problem of securing a safe and wholesome public 

 milk supply; and, especially, such a system of pro- 

 ducing and distributing the milk upon which so many 



