Evening star., 1947-06-12
|AIIergy Of Children
To Milk Blamed for
|0bscure Illnesses
By Thomas R. Henry
sinr Stnff CoSrexpondenf

ATLANTIC CITY, June H.
Allergy to milk is common cause
of wide variety OF obscure illnesses
In children.
Evidence of this situation, hitherto
hardly recognized in medical prac-
tice, was presented before the Amer
lean Medical Association here yes
terday by DR.: Preston A. McLendon,
Washington child specialist, and his
associate, DR.. Dorothy S. Jaeger-Lee.
The difficulties due to this allergy,
they reported, range all the way from
severe collie and bowel Irregularities
in infants to underweight, pallor,
foul breath, frequent colds, easy
fatigue, poor school progress and
irritability in slightly older children.
Milk Not Held Essential.
Such an allergy, they believe, acts
in almost precisely the same way as
the abnormal sensitivities due to in
haling certain pollens or dust, but
it often Is more generalized in its
effect.
It may be due to almost any food
eaten by the child, in the experience
of the two Washington doctors.
However, cows milk Is the most
frequent offender. Some of the chill
dren, they found, displayed the
whole list of symptoms over con-
siderable period, but these promptly
disappeared when milk was removed
from the diet.
They denied that milk, per Sc, Is
essential for the balanced diet.
It's absence from the diet, DR.. Nc
Lendon said, I'm our experience does
not lower the blood calcium or phos-
phorus. Neither has it, in cases
observed over period OF years,
resulted in increased dental cares. y
+ Substitutes Can Be Made.
For infants they reported, either
mothers milk or cow or goat milk
can be replaced by synthetic prepa-
rations such as come from soy beans.
The difficulty is that these often
contain additional substances such
as yeast or certain vitamin prepa-
rations which may themselves bring
allergic sensitiveness.
nsome cases they found, 1t Is
possible to desensitize the patients,
but there is tendency for allergy
to return in later years. They
dealt harshly with many Of the
balanced diet preparations for
children which are widely adver-
tised. For example, DR.. McLendon
pointed out, when it became popu-
lar to irradiate milk with ultra
violet light to increase its vitamin
D content, the process caused OBJ
scure chemical changes which re-
suited in many cases Of collie.
Food Not Blamed.
Said DR.. McLendon: "Constipa-
ton in infants and children always
has been a field for innumerable
remedies. Laxative ads adorn the
pages of magazines and newspapers
and jam our radios. Numerous ar.
ticles appear in medical journals
giving advice on balanced diets,
roughage, etc. None have appeared,
so far, as I know, in which a food
was blamed. And yet in any group
of children under usual feeding re-
gimes there are number who per-
sistently eat an unbalanced diet but
do not suffer from constipation. On
the other hand part of this group
may enjoy an ideally balanced diet
and yet require laxatives or en-
emas."
Skin tests such as are used to de-
tect respiratory allergies. the two
doctors reported, have little value in
diagnosing food sensitivities. These
must be determined largely by a
process of elimination. There is a
symptom complex, however, by
means of which the difficulty may
be laid to something in the diet.
Colds and bouts of high tempera-
ture, for example, tend to run in
cycles and there are often charac-
teristic changes in the blood.
Three producing oil wells were
completed in Bolivia In 1946.