WHY cow's MILK? 75 



of our babies must be fed as will stop the needless 

 waste of life, the stream of little baby lives that 

 flows each year into the great ocean of death and 

 loss. It requires no elaborate argument to show 

 that a clear comprehension of the problem is the first 

 essential condition of its successful solution. 



It is, therefore, not proposed to enter upon a dis- 

 cussion of the various milk formulas which have 

 been prepared by different authorities upon infant 

 dietetics, such as the venerable and learned Jacobi, 

 Rotch, Chapin, Holt, and others.'* Nor wiU any 

 attempt be made to determine the merits of the 

 controversy between those who favor a very high 

 percentage of fat, using "top-milk" only, or adding 

 cream to the milk, and those who favor a low per- 

 centage of fat. There is doubtless a danger line in 

 either direction, and the milk of the human mother 

 is not very likely to be improved upon as a standard. 

 For the reasons stated, our concern with the modifica- 

 tion of milk for infants is very slight. We have noth- 

 ing to do with the technic of its formulas, but only 

 with those aspects of it which have a socio-economic 

 significance. 



The practice of modifying milk has, in a crude 

 way, been carried on from very remote times. Long 

 before the rise of a school of physicians devoted 

 especially to the study of pediatrics, mothers, find- 

 ing that their babies could not retain the milk of 



