To be properly fed the baby must live on its mother's milk until it has reached the age of twelve months. Of course, to do this the child must thrive and thus show the food to agree with it, and the mother must be in all respects healthy and furnish milk in every way proper for nourishment for the offspring. Blessed is the baby who has a mother able and willing to afford it proper sustenance, for the rapid pace of modern life is more and more rendering the nursing of infants distasteful and even annoying to many mothers, and this is especially so as we ascend the scale of social life. There is no substitute for mother's milk. We are often driven to substitutes, but they are mere makeshifts. The living stomach is not a laboratory bottle. As Jacobi says, cows' milk casein and cows' milk fat cannot be changed into woman's casein and woman's fat; the warmth of the human bosom and the warmth of the nursing-bottle are not identical, and cows' milk, certified or modified, is not human milk. Human milk contains phosphorus compounds, as nuclein and lecithin, and cows' milk has too much of the soda and potash salts for the baby. The ferments of all milks are said to be sui generis, suitable for each animal. Cows' milk cannot be changed into human milk, or vice versa. The formulae offered by the baby-food people are no substitutes for mother's milk; they are, as before said, mere makeshifts. Again quoting Jacobi, the inability or reluctance of women to nurse their own infants is a grave matter. From a physical, moral, and socio-political point of view there is only one calamity still graver, - that is, to refuse to have children at all. It undermines the health of women, makes family life a commercial institution, a desert, depopulates the child world, reduces original Americans to a small minority, and leaves the creation of the future America in the hands of twentieth century foreigners. The human society of the future will have to see to it that no poverty, no cruel labor laws, no accident, no luxurious indolence, must interfere with the nursing of infants. If the physical and moral conditions of the human race are to be perfected, able-bodied women must nurse their own infants, for infants are to be the future citizens of the republic. Antiquity did not know of artificial infant-feeding; it takes modern civilization to expose babies to disease and extinction. To proper infant-feeding society and family owe more than life, - they owe good health, vital resistance, and security against life-long invalidism. Even willing mothers may have no milk. This is too often apparent now. We require a stronger, healthier race, and one that is physically not on the down grade. The nursing question is a social and economic problem like so many others, like the child-bearing question, that confronts modern civilization.

Analysis Of Human Milk. Griffith

Reaction alkaline. Bacteria absent. Water, 87-88 per cent. Total solids, 12-13 per cent. Fat, 4 per cent. Proteids, 1-1.5 per cent. Milk sugar, 7 per cent. Ash, 0.2 per cent.

Analysis Of Cows' Milk. Griffith

Reaction acid. Bacteria present Water, 86-87 per cent. Total solids, 13-14 per cent. Fat, 4 per cent. Proteids, 4 per cent. Milk sugar, 4-5 per cent. Ash, 0.7 per cent.

Looking at these analyses, we see bacteria in cows' milk and not in human milk; cows' milk acid and human milk alkaline. Fats are the same in both. Woman's milk is nearly twice as rich in sugar, has only about one-fourth as much proteids, and is much less cheesy. This cheesiness is too much for the baby. In making infant food of cows' milk we must add water to lessen the proteids, and to make up for this we must add to it cream and sugar. Also we must add an alkali to reduce the acidity. Human milk contains lactalbu-min to a greater extent than cows' milk, and this is more digestible than the too much casein of cows' milk.

If we boil cows' milk, or pasteurize it, we make it more indigestible than the raw milk, yet this is often necessary to destroy the pathogenic germs present. All of these matters bear close watching in feeding the baby on cows' milk. You cannot be too careful in choosing cows' milk for the baby, or any lower animal milk. Have it examined chemically and bacteriologically. As a rule, take herd milk and not one cow's milk. From herd milk you get a better balance. Herds of course should be frequently tested for tuberculosis and such, and to see that the surroundings are clean. Gilt-edge cows housed in gilt-edge barns are, as a rule, more liable to be unhealthy than grade animals, for the reason that their high breeding and their environment are unnatural. The natural environment of the cow is the open air. As a rule, high-grade Jersey and Alderney milk is too rich in fats for the baby, unless diluted.

The care of milk is of the greatest importance. Too much care cannot be exercised as to cleanliness, etc. After milking, it should be rapidly cooled and placed in sealed jars. Those in charge of babies should be provided with a lactometer, and this should be frequently used to test the density of the milk. To test for the fats, a creamometer should be used. This instrument is probably not more reliable than the physical appearances of the milk as to richness. We are now speaking of cows' milk. The same tests should be applied from time to time to human milk. For testing the acidity of milk we use litmus paper, blue and red. If acid, it turns litmus blue to red. If alkaline, it turns litmus red to blue. We are getting more and more light on the milk question, as adulterants and antiferments are being more and more used by unscrupulous and ignorant dealers. Milk inspection, especially in cities and towns where most needed, is becoming quite general, and is saving much suffering and many lives. Milk inspection cannot be too closely guarded.

A Substitute For Human Milk

Griffith gives the following, which is among the best:

Cows' milk, one ounce; cream, centrifuged or separated by a separator, now much used, one and one-half ounces, or cream, skimmed (16 per cent fat), two ounces; lime water, one-half ounce; milk sugar, one scant half-ounce; water, enough to make in all eight ounces. If this mixture is to be sterilized by heat, use bicarbonate of soda in place of the lime water. For the eight-ounce mixture a good pinch of the soda will be sufficient.

If we cannot get good cream, Griffith advises the use of "top milk." Take a quart of morning milk, put in a jar, screw lid on tight, and place on ice for from four to six hours. Now siphon off all but six ounces of the milk. Of course the siphon is run to the bottom before siphoning, and the bottom milk is what is siphoned off; that which is left is "top milk." The Chapin dipper is another means for getting top milk. The more top milk left, of course, the weaker it is. Top milk is really a cream. The same purpose may be accomplished, but not so accurately, by pouring off the top layer of the milk, and this is known as poured milk.

"Top Milk" Mixture, According To Griffith

Top milk, two ounces; lime water, one-half ounce, or bicarbonate of soda, a pinch; milk sugar, scant half ounce; water, sufficient to make a half-pint mixture.

Absolute cleanliness in all manipulation is necessary.

As in all cases of diet making, study the individual, in the baby as well as in the adult. Human milk as it comes from the mother is practically free from germs.

Artificial milk food for the baby is usually sterilized (raised to 212° Fahrenheit, that is, boiled); or raised to about 1600 Fahrenheit in the bottles and then put on ice; this is called pasteurizing. Remember in all this cooking of milk you really reduce its food value and take away its freshness, and thus render the baby more liable to malnutrition in the shape of infantile scurvy, etc. On the other hand, heat destroys the pathogenic germs: so the feeding of each child is a case of watching and planning to keep within the proper bounds. Never allow the child to suck the nipple of a bottle after it is empty; it is a bad habit, and begets bad habits. Condensed milk, as a rule, is not good food for the baby. I often see it resorted to by mothers in very hot weather, when it is almost impossible to get sweet milk, and on such occasions I have resorted to it myself, for as it leaves the can it is sterile. It should be removed at once from the can on opening it, as should all canned products, and kept on ice in china or glass. If we dilute with water condensed milk sufficiently to make the proteids digestible, we get too little fats, and vice versa. Thus the baby fed exclusively on condensed milk does not thrive. Stand behind these babies, and look at their necks, and you see evidences of semistarva-tion. As a rule, the baby foods on the market are not good substitutes for mother's milk, but now and then may be used as makeshifts.