The record-union., 1893-01-30
WHAT SHALL BABY EAT?
0at Meal and Barley Porridge Strictly
Forbidden.
Condensed Milk and Arrow Root for
the Little Ones are Com
mended.

If the baby is unable to obtain its nat
ural food, what other food shall be Sc
lected?
Evidently one that resembles as closely
as possible the food that nature intended
for it; and this is cows milk, properly
prepared.
AS we have seen that cows milk con-
tains more solids than mothers milk,
these must be reduced by dilution with
water, while sugar must be added to raise
it to the standard of mothers milk. This
dilution, however, by lessening the
amount of dense coagulum, actually in
creases the amount of milk that is abb
sorbed by the infants stomach.
The amount of water to be added varies
with the age of the child.
If we are compelled to feed newborn
child artificially, we may add three parts
water to one of milk for the first two or
three days. After that two parts water to
one of milk for month. In the second
month the food may be equal parts of
milk and water; and from the end of this
month on the quantity of water may be
cautiously lessened, until at seven months
the baby drinks undiluted milk. This
should be given at a temperature of ITO
degrees Fhr. and slowly drunk, as much
as twenty minutes being consumed in
the meal.
Cows milk purchased in cities should
always be boiled, and Immediately after
1t is delivered, for several grave reasons
The well-known tendency of milk to
become acid Is due to a fermentation in
duced by certain bacteria.
This fermentation is always increased
by the action OF oxygen in the air, and
therefore is more rapidly induced when
milk is exposed in shallow vessels than
when it is kept in bottles, although it
sours quickly in partially filled bottles
containing air.
Unclean vessels of any kind also in
duce this fermentation, because they gem
orally contain the bacteria that always
accompany dirt.
Now, all these bacteria are effectually
destroyed and fermentation checked by
boiling for the requisite time.
1t is also well esta abIished that milk fire.
quently carries disease germs, the prin-
clpal ones being those of tuberculosis.
scarlet fever and typhoid fever.
tuberculosis is very common disease
among dairy cows, and the bacteria which
induce 1t have been found repeatedly in
the milk OF such cows. This milk hav-
ing been introduced into the circulation
of healthy rabbits and other lower ami
mails, has induced in them the same dread
disease. There is no reason to doubt
that infants may be infected in the same
manner if the proper conditions are pres
ent.
1t should be the duty of city govern
ments to provide proper sanitary inspec-
tion of the dairies which supply their in
habitants and also of the quality of the
milk after it reaches the town, as it is
only by such a system that this danger
to the infant population can be obviated.
Such a system is in practice in certain
foreign cities in Germany, Denmark and
elsewhere, but in the absence of such mu-
nicipal authority in our American cities
the responsibility must rest upon the
mother.
Small sterilizing vessels, which effect the
purpose by steam, instead of direct boil
ing, with the necessary bottles may be
purchased i'll every city, and these offer a
convenient way of performing the pro-
cess. The milk should be diluted and
prepared as for use in the required num-
ber of bottles, and sterilized for fifty min
uteS, and, after cooling, set on the ice.
This. or boiling for the same time, de-
stroys all bacteria.
When milk is boiled in flat vessel
delicate skin forms on the surface, which
is partly fat and partly albumen. This
must be SKINNED off, as it will not pass
through the nipple, and thus small por-
ton of the milk solids (one-twenty- fifth
is lost. This may be avoided by boiling
the milk i'll narrow necked vessels.
In the ideal country home, where the
individual owns her own perfectly
healthy COW and can control its hygienic
conditions of food, air and housing. il is
allowable to use that freshly drawn milk
without boiling, but in cities this practice
can only be attended with danger
Barley or oatmeal water may be used
to dilute the milk in the proportions al
ready mentioned, these geIatinous decoc-
tions appearing to mechanically separate
the curds of cows milk and SO render it
more digestible.
Oatmeal may be used for children who
tend to constipation, barley for others.
These grains prepared as thick por-
ridge, however, are entirely unsuitable
for children, either with or without milk.
as they do not offer the proper propor-
tions of albmen, sugar and fat, and are
actually Irritating to the digestive canal.
Neither is condensed milk suitable
food for infants, tor the same reasons.
Condensed milk in the can has six
times as much albumen, two and half
times as much fat, eight times as much
sugar and six times as much salts as
mothers milk.
Now 1t is impossible to dilute this milk
in such way as to bring both albumen
and sugar in proper proportions. If the
sugar and salt are properly diluted the
albumen remains in altogether too small
quantity for nourishment.
That children do apparently flourish on
condensed milk is frequently asserted,
and that it will grow fat babies cannot be
doubted, but undue fat is not sign of
vigor, and, as matter of fact, general ex-
perience shows that children so fed are
more liable to digestive disturbances as
well as to anaemia and rachitis than those
fed on fresh cows milk, and that they
show less resistance to disease in the event
of its onset.
A common error, and one probably
fatal in some cases, has been the feeding
OF infants upon arrow-root, corn starch
and similar tarinaceous foods, either with
or without milk.
Such foods have almost no material
value to the child, as they consist almost
entirely of starch, and the glands in the
infant that digest starch are quite unde-
veloped in the first two or three months
of life.
The proportion of albumen to carbo-
hydrates in the arrow-root, for instance,
is as l to 20, while in human milk they
are in proportion of l to or 5. So it will
be seen that such articles bear no resenb-
lance to an infants natural food and
needs.
Ordinary milk porridge, such as is
made. with wheat flour, is not suitable
food Tor infants for the same reason, viz:
that its nourishing elements are not in
the same proportion as in milk, and can
not be made to agree with it even when
diluted with water.
The principal evil in such foods lies in
the excess of starch, of which wheat
haG a