FILTH AS infants' FOOD 85 



fed to the vast majority of bottle-fed babies ia this 

 country. 



Dirt and disease are the two great perils of our milk 

 supply. Dirt from the cow giving the milk, and dirt 

 from the human beings by whom the milk is handled, 

 and disease from both bovine and human sources are 

 distressingly common in the milk upon which we feed 

 our infants. To this cause more than to any other 

 must the enormous mortality from intestinal disorders 

 among bottle-fed babies be attributed. More than a 

 century ago, Smollett, the English novelist, himself a 

 physician, described the conditions surrounding the 

 milk supply of London in terms of unqualified, scath- 

 ing denunciation. Who that has read the descrip- 

 tion, in Humphrey Clinker, of the food dainties of 

 Covent Garden can forget the following passage of 

 brutal, eloquent realism? 



"I need not dwell on the paUid contaminated mush 

 which they call strawberries, soiled and tossed by 

 greasy paws through twenty baskets crusted with 

 dirt, and then presented with the worst milk, thick- 

 ened with the worst flour, into a bad likeness of cream ; 

 but the milk itself should not pass unanalyzed, the 

 produce of faded cabbage leaves and sour draff, lowered 

 with hot water, frothed with bruised snails, carried 

 through the streets in open pails, exposed to foul rins- 

 ings discharged from doors and windows, spittle, snot, 

 and tobacco-quids, from foot-passengers, overflowings 



