OUR BABIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 619, 15 November 1913, Page 2

OUR BABIES.

DRIED MILK FOR BABIES. In this column a few weeks ago I showed the harmful influence of: tho exces? of nrui'.'ic] present in cow's milk, whether given pur*' or in the form of condensed or dried milk with water, U wili be remembered that while human milk was seen to J average from 1,1 to 1.-" j.u-1- cent of proteid, a dried cow's miik r such a 9 Glaxo yielded, oo dilution "for u?e 3 per cent., or about, two or three times more than the proper percentage; in other words, practically the percentage found in ordinary cow's in ilk. However, in the proprietor's letter he says: "We could boirat that there is no result to be found in using dried cow's milk, s (here would bo in using even humanised milk. The difficulty of the digestion of proteids i'b absolutely overcome." The meaning of this is somewhat obscure, hut. assuming that th 9 word residue was intended, and not result, it would appear to b3 contended that humanised milk leaves an undigested residue in the alimentary canal, and that dried milk does not. A gratuitous assumption of this kind is qite absurd. All foods, evert mothers' miik, leave some undigested residue, but German scientific investigations go to show that, if not given ni excess, the absorption of the casein of properly modified cow's milk is not inferior to that of mother's milk. 1 However, grant for a moment that our correspondent is right, and that there is really complete absorption of the proteid of Glaxo into the blood; this would do away with the only argument we have ever heard advanced in jsutification of the use of cow's milk in which the proteid has not been reduced bo as to approximate it to the low percentage found in hman milk. The stock reply made in extenuation of giving too much proteid is, "Oh, yes, but possibly Nature does rot require the babys'digestive organs to digest and absorb more of the proteid than is needed —some may remain undigested in the intestine." Of course, such a stagntaion of any large proportion of the most putrescible of the constituents of milk would be highly dangerous, especially in sum-. mer, and is, indeed, regarded as a factor in the causation of that fatal malady— summer diarrhoea. But in order to escape the imputation of danger from excessive intake of proteid and consequent over-taxing of the kidneys, or poisoning of the system, those who do not happen to advocate the "humanising" of cow's milk have frequently, in my own experience, fallen back in argument on the hypothesis of incomplete absorption of the excess of proteid. No, the proprietor says that when Glaxo is used the whole of the proteid is absorbed, every particle of it, and if this is really the case there is no escaping from the conclusion that the baby's poor little kidneys must be called on to do daily two or three times as much work as Nature has designed them to carry out. When the constituents of any food are given in entirely erroneous proportions "imperfect absorption" is, of course, the most obvious way out of the difficulty, and when this explanation is reected and complete absorption ia claimed there is nothing to fall back on — the inevitable conclusion being that the food will prove will prove more or less injurious Actual expeirence confirms ?his. Excess of proteid has been long rrcognised as the main objection to the use of unmodified cow's milk for babies -the main cauee for its disagreeing. Our correspondent says, in criticising a statement I made some time ago eg to the ready digestion of emulsified cod liver oil by babies: — "1 also notice that you make use of the words, 'thn baby digested completely.' Well, 1 would like to point out that the highest authorities that we consulted and under whom we are teaching hsve pointed out to us that facts are not digested in the ordinary sense, but are absorbed. That is why Glaxo is a rrmeh better preparation and much easier for digestion than any humanised milk." I need not uai.se to ask what is meant by the remark that in Glaxo "the ehvaeler of the cream has been changed into a fat"; and I fail to see what importance There is in splitting hairs on a technical question of terms in physiology, which falls within the. province of tsie physician and somewhat outside that of myself .isa housewife or the proprietor of Glaxo as a merchant. However, we will ask his own authority. Dr Robert Hutchison, to decide for us whether it i right or wrong to speak of the digestion of fats. In his latest book, "Applied Physiology." page IM, Dr Hutchison says, under the heading "The fat molecules of the food, having been split up by digestion into fatty acids and are absorbed in that form." I shall conclude this subject next week.