639 
diseases of the digestive tube, Nothing, however, can more graphic- 
ally illustrate this point than the accompanying chart from Budin 
which is here reproduced (p. 638). 
PART II.— THE INFANT’S DIETARY. 
In common with adults, the infant requires five elements of food 
for its sustenance, to wit : Proteid. carbohydrate, fat, mineral salts, 
and water. Owing, however, to the undeveloped state of its organs 
of assimilation it can not avail itself of any wide dietary range. By 
reason of its rapid growth and more active metabolism it requires 
food of special form and with the nutritive ingredients in special pro- 
portions to each other. Milks are the only class of food which ful- 
fill these conditions, being, as they are, an animal product, designed 
by nature only to that end. 
As this paper deals merely with the dietary of infants less than 1 
year of age, woman’s milk and its only feasible substitute, cow’s 
milk, will alone be considered. 
woman’s milk. 
Woman’s milk is the secretion of the human mammary gland. Un- 
der normal conditions of lactation it is in no sense a transudation 
from the blood and lymphatics, but is a true secretion elaborated by 
glandular tissue. True milk is not present in the mammary glands 
until two to four days after parturition, and occasionally not until 
the fifth day. 
Colostrum. — The secretion present in the mamma for the first few 
days after delivery differs materially from normal milk and is known 
as “colostrum.” It is a fluid of a deep yellow tint, chiefly due to 
bodies it contains known as “ colostrum corpuscles.” It is not so 
sweet as milk, is strongly alkaline in reaction, of a specific gravity 
of 1,030 to 1,040, and is rich in salts and proteids. These proteids are 
of a nature similar to the proteids of the blood as they are coagulated 
by heat. Colostrum contains less sugar and fat than milk, and micro- 
scopically its fat globules vary in size and are interspersed with 
numerous bodies four or five times their size known as “ colostrum 
corpuscles.” 
C omposition of colostrum.-^- According to Pfeiffer’s analysis, the 
composition of colostrum is as follows: 
Per cent. 
Proteid 1 5. 71 
Fat 1 - 2.04 
Sugar — 3. 74 
Salts __ - — 0.25 
Water 88.23 
Caloric value per kilogram. 577.17 calories. 
100. 00 
