Improved Foods suitable for Infants.
Year: 1891

page_text: Improved Foods suitable for Infants.
I, WILLIAM RALPH DODD, Pharmaceutical Chemist of Dunsmure Road,
Stamford Hill, London, N., do hereby declare the nature of this invention and
in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement :-
This invention has for its object the production of a food for infants.
In a Specification of an application for a Patent of even date with this application,
I have fully set forth the method of manufacturing a suitable food for infants of
very tender age, and the food prepared in accordance with this Specification is so
devised as to be well adapted to succeed the one above referred to, when the infant
has sufficiently developed to require a stronger and more sustaining form of diet.
As infants progress in age, it is desirable to offer them a food, which, in addition
to supplying their immediate wants in respect of nutrition, may stimulate the
various digestive functions, so as duly to bring them into efficient action. Starch,
the preponderating constituent of farinaceous foods, is ill suited to afford the stimulus
in question, as it is itself found, in the case of young infants, to be incapable of
assimilation, and to pass through the system practically unchanged.
A suitable stimulus to the exercise of digestive functions, may be obtained by
submitting, for food, a material such as dextrin, which in itself would appear to be
not directly assimilable, but has to be broken down or degraded (by the abstraction
therefrom of one or more molecules of water of constitution) into maltose, which
is capable of direct assimilation in the stomach. This chemical degradation (or
abstraction of the molecules of water) can be effected by the secreted fluids of the
digestive apparatus, and it is therefore desirable to administer, as a food, a certain
proportion of dextrin, with a view to the exercise of this action.
When starch, previously gelatinized, is suitably acted upon by diastase in the
presence of water, it is wholly converted into dextrin and maltose, together with
chemical combinations of the two bodies, which combinations are known as malto-
dextrins.
It has been found that the ratio of maltose to dextrin will vary with the
temperature at which this starch conversion is effected, and it has further been
found that, by digesting the starch diastase and water at a temperature
about 160° F., the resulting product will contain about 66% of maltose and
about 34% of dextrin, and that the results yielded at this temperature are more
stable in composition than those of intermediate temperatures. This temperature,
viz., 160° F., is that which I employ in the preparation of this food.
Barley-malt, as ordinarily prepared, contains more diastase than is sufficient to
convert the whole of its contained starch into maltose and dextrin, and I therefore
utilize this excess by the addition of a sufficiency of unmalted starch. This starch
I prefer to introduce in the form of wheat, because of the phosphates this cereal
contains, and I so arrange my proportion of added wheat starch to malt, with
respect to the diastatic power of the malt (if necessary previously ascertained), that
after proper digestion with water at a temperature of 160° F., no free starch is left
in the mixture. The added starch, whether wheat starch or derived from other
sources, is previously gelatinised by methods well known and utilized for other
purposes of manufacture.
In the preparation of this food, I proceed as follows:-
10 lbs. (avdp.) of crushed wheat are boiled with water for, say, one hour (or
longer, if necessary, to gelatinise it fully), and the resulting gelatinised mixture is
then cooled down to 160° F. There is next added to it 10 lbs. (avdp.) of good
crushed malt, preferably of high diastatic power. All the ingredients are well

page_text: mixed together and allowed to digest, the temperature being maintained at
about 150° F. for about two hours, or until such time as chemical examination
shews that the whole of the starch has been converted. The resulting mash is
then allowed to settle, and the clear supernatant fluid carefully removed; the
latter is next neutralized with a sufficiency of carbonate or bi-carbonate of sodium,
or of lime water (hydrate of lime).
To the fluid resulting from the mashing above described, I add 100 lbs. cows'
milk, sterilised, or 100 lbs. of cows' milk treated in the manner described in my
Specification of even date with this, but not evaporated to a pasty consistency, and
without the addition of albumen (wheat extract &c.) or lactose; or 1 take the food
resulting from the use of 100 lbs. cows' milk by the process described in my said
Specification before being subjected to evaporation The second of these processes
I prefer. The resulting mixture I neutralise if necessary, and then evaporate down
in a vacuum pan, until the mixture weighs about 25 lbs. to 30 lbs. (avdp.).
I have given these proportions as representing those which I find in practice give
the best results, but it must be understood that I do not bind myself absolutely to
these figures.
After evaporation, the food is ready for packing in tins or other convenient
vessels capable of being hermetically sealed. Before being administered as food,
the product manufactured as above described should be diluted in the proportion
of about one part of food to three of warm water. If desired, cane sugar, to the
extent of about 2% in the finished product, may be added as a sweetening
ingredient.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is
The improved forms of food suitable for infants herein described.