80 THE COMMON SENSE OP THE MILK QUESTION 



popular statement which will enable the average 

 mother of the working class to understand per- 

 centage-feeding, so as to practise it intelligently, 

 without having to undergo a very complicated 

 system of calculation, will confer a great boon upon 

 humanity. 



As it is, where mothers are intelligent enough to use 

 modified cow's milk they frequently do not under- 

 stand that the extent and manner of the modification 

 must be determined by two factors mainly — the 

 quahty of the milk in its undiluted state and the age 

 and physical development of the child whose diet it 

 is intended to be. Many of the cases of children fail- 

 ing to thrive upon the modified milk provided at a 

 low price at the Infants' Milk Depots maintained by 

 private philanthropy in this country, and by munici- 

 pal enterprise in England, are due to the ignorance 

 of the mothers upon these points and the lack of an 

 effective supervision of the distribution of the milk 

 mixture. Dr. F. M. Fry tells, in the Archives of 

 Pediatrics,^^ of a physician who sent an order to the 

 Walker-Gordon laboratory, that "four ounces of modi- 

 fied milk" be sent daily to a certain address. No in- 

 structions were given as to the ingredients desired, 

 nor anything said concerning the age of the infant 

 for whom the milk was required. Doubtless the 

 physician desired and expected good results for the 

 baby as a result of the use of modified milk, which 



