PART X.
INVALIDS' AND INFANTS' FOODS.
One of the most important subjects in connection with the food supply
is the study of the foods which are offered for the use of infants and invalids.
The demands of modern society, unfortunately, have deprived the American infant
in many cases of the food which Nature intended it to have. It is, therefore,
a condition, rather than a theory, confronting the feeding of the American
infant. It often is a choice between starvation and an artificial food.
A most self-evident fact in connection with infant food is that until an infant
reaches the age when it is naturally weaned it should have as a food only
milk. The common substitute for mother's milk is cow's milk. The important
point in this connection is that the milk should be from a healthy cow,
kept in a sanitary condition, and the milk should be secured in thoroughly
sanitary ways. These methods of preparing milk are, in fact, the practical
result of modern sanitary theories. The composition of cow's milk is not that
of mother's milk. It contains more protein and less milk sugar than the normal
milk of the mother. For this reason the cow's milk is often modified
to bring it into nearer relationship to the natural mother's milk. When this
is done under scientific directions and according to a prescription furnished
by a competent physician or physiologist there is no objection to its use provided
it is accomplished without exposure of the milk to bacteria or other contamination.
The addition of drugs to milk in its preparation for infants' use
cannot be generally commended. The citrate of lime or limewater is one of the
substances which is often added to milk, and that, too, by the direction of a
physician. There are conditions of disease in infants where such a modification
is advisable, but it is doubtful if it is ever so in the case of a healthy
child. The same remark may be made respecting the limewater.
Composition of Modified Milk.—Proteids and ash in cow's milk are much higher than in human milk and are brought to the proper degree of reduction by blending with other milk and diluting the milk with water.
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| | | | Diluted |
| Cow's | Diluted | Diluted | Three | Diluted
| Milk. | Once. | Twice. | Times. | Four Times.
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Proteids, | 4.00 | 2.00 | 1.35 | 1.00 | 0.80
Ash, | 0.70 | 0.35 | 0.23 | 0.18 | 0.14
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