Milk is the support of man in his infancy and is his last resort if toothless old age overtakes him. Milk is really a complete food, and its indiscriminate use as a beverage by those who already eat a full supply of regulation diet is to be condemned as superfluous. When used properly by sick or well, under the guidance of proper medical advice, there is nothing to equal it, and no tonic devised by man, as tonics are understood, can in any way approach milk; but as a tonic milk cannot be used alone. Matured man cannot live and thrive on milk alone; something else must accompany it in the ration. If he lives on milk alone he soon gets tired of the monotony, and for a good reason. It takes nine pints of cow's milk, at a specific gravity of 1030 or over, to give him the twenty-three ounces of dry food needed for his daily allowance; and while taking this quantity he gets too much albumin, fats, and water, for he does not require so great an amount This is all right for the growing infant It needs more of these, and can live on milk alone for a considerable time; but it should drink some sterilized water in addition - an important matter very often overlooked - otherwise it becomes dyspeptic, wretched, and cross. I say sterilized water, for it is safer, and the water of the milk, with its salts, keeps intact the cell protoplasm, if sterilized or distilled water will not accomplish this, or even injures it The life of an ordinary man might be supported for some time on three pints of milk each twenty-four hours, but it would take nine pints or more for a full ration.

The chemical composition of milk is as follows:

Whole Cows' Milk

Water, 87.0; proteids, 3.3; fat, 4.0; carbohydrates, 5.0; ash, .7. Fuel value per pound, 310 calories.

Skim Milk

Water, 90.5; proteids, 3.4; fat, .3; carbohydrates, 5.1; ash, .7. Fuel value per pound, 165 calories.

Buttermilk

Water, 91.0; proteids, 3.0; fat, .5; carbohydrates, 4.8; ash, .7. Fuel value per pound, 160 calories.

Condensed Milk

Water, 26.9; proteids, 8.8; fat, 8.3; carbohydrates, 54.1; ash, 1.9. Fuel value per pound, 1430 calories. Here most of the water is driven off in the condensing and much sugar is added.

Lactose, or milk sugar, is an important ingredient in milk. It is equal, usually, to half the solids of the milk, leaving out the fats. It sours the milk by being converted into lactic acid during the fermentation of the milk, caused by nitrogenous materials in it. Milk is an ideal host for pathogenic germs, and when we come to think of their universal presence, under all circumstances and at all times, we soon see how it is impossible to guard too closely and too jealously all that pertains to this universal nourishment of man.

Sterilizing and pasteurizing milk will destroy the germs in it. To sterilize milk bring it to the boiling point, 212° Fahrenheit. To destroy the spores absolutely and surely, bring it to the boiling point a second time. To keep it, put it in bottles, being sure first to sterilize the bottles by boiling them, starting them in cold water; after this gets to boiling, keep it up twenty minutes. Stop the milk bottles with sterilized cotton, not with a solid cork. The cotton allows escape from within and checks the entrance of microbes from without. If milk is boiled twenty minutes, it will digest better than milk merely sterilized. Sterilizing milk destroys the amylolytic ferment, checks the coagulating of the casein by rennin, retards the digestion of the casein, and checks somewhat the absorption of the fat, and, if the boiling is prolonged, the lactose is destroyed more or less. It takes more sterilized milk to nourish an infant than it does of fresh milk.

To pasteurize milk, raise it to 1700 Fahrenheit and keep it there twenty minutes. This digests more easily than sterilized milk and is more palatable. It does not keep quite so well.

Milk varies greatly as to the breed of the cow. The English Channel cattle furnish the richest milk. A quart of milk contains about four ounces of nutriment and is equal to three-fourths of a pound of beef. It is also equal to about six ounces of bread.

Condensed milk should be sterile when opened. It should never be kept in a tin can after it has been opened, nor should any other canned stuff. Condensing reduces the bulk of the milk about three-fourths. About 40 per cent. of cane sugar is added to the milk, and for this reason it does not keep well and is more apt to cause fermentative troubles in those using it. When you want an excess of fat, add olive oil.

Devonshire cream is cream skimmed from heated milk, so the albumin is coagulated and comes off with the cream.

Evaporated milk is milk from which the water has been driven off by heat and is for immediate use.

Buttermilk is milk from which the fat has been removed for butter. There is albumin and casein left in it, and water and the milk salts and lactic acid Neither skim milk nor buttermilk will alone support life beyond a reasonable time.

Cottage cheese - Schmierkase, or smear case - is a very inviting food, especially in hot weather. It is high in protein, low in fat, with much lactic acid formed from the sugar as fermentation goes on.

Whey is a useful product. It contains water, milk salts, some albumin, and lactose or milk sugar. It does not keep long. It should be sterilized before using, which may coagulate some of the albumin.

Applying heat in any way to milk destroys its freshness and deteriorates its nutritive power. No animal, from man down, will thrive as well on cooked milk as on raw milk. A child may get infantile scurvy from cooked milk as a steady diet, from raw milk never. So it is necessary to watch this cooking of milk, especially for children, for we must often cook it to destroy pathogenic germs.

As said when speaking of diets for children, watch your milk supply closely. Have that furnished you scientifically examined frequently.

Watch out for antiferments, coloring matters, etc A proper amount of butter fats must always be looked after. The care and housing of the cows, and the care of the milk and vessels and water supply must be attended to.

Bulletin No. 42, United States Department of Agriculture, by R. A. Pearson, B.S., is a valuable publication, and I have availed myself of its use here.

The milch cows in this country are worth four hundred millions of dollars or more. There is a cow to every four people, but much of the product is exported as butter, cheese, and condensed milk. The average consumption of milk per inhabitant in this country is one-half pint per day.

Under the microscope milk is a clear fluid, with many minute globules of various sizes. The globules are pure fat and form with the serum an emulsion. The solid constituents of the serum are mostly sugar and casein. There is some albumin, fibrin, and mineral matter. Of the solids, sugar exceeds; milk sugar is not so sweet as cane sugar. The fat globules are very small, a drop containing many millions. The casein and albumin are the nitrogenous constituents. Acid or rennet coagulates casein and forms curd. The mineral matters are phosphates and chlorides of soda, potash, and lime. One hundred pounds of good milk should hold 87 pounds of water, 4 pounds of fat, 5 pounds of milk sugar, 3.3 pounds of casein and albumin, and .7 pound of salts. The solids vary from ten to eighteen parts in one hundred. The solids denote the grade of the milk.

You can now buy graded milk of the dealers. Buy it on a physician's prescription, if you choose. Remember, skim milk has much food value, - the fats only are removed. What is left has all value as a tissue-former, for the making of blood and muscle and bone, and half the value of unskimmed milk for force-producing.

Let me give a recipe for koumiss as made from cows' milk. It is a refreshing and often useful food. It contains, after twenty-four hours' fermentation, alcohol, about 18per cent.; milk sugar, 15; fat, 20; salts, 4; lactic acid, 5; albumin, 23; carbonic acid, 7, etc. To make it from cow's milk, take one quart of new milk, one-third of a compressed yeast cake, or a dessertspoonful of fluid yeast, one heaped tablespoonful of pulverized sugar. Mix and warm this, put in a champagne bottle, and tie the cork down. Do not use a thin bottle; it will burst, and may cut you. Ten hours' standing, at a heat of 900 Fahrenheit, will ripen it, and it is then ready for use. A patent-stopper beer-bottle is a proper bottle to make a pint in. Keep on ice or in a cold place.