DRY MILK

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1682, 25 May 1904, Page 67

DRY MILK

. A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION. (By a Physician.) A 'slystem of transforming milk into powder has recently been invented, which may before long completely revolutionise one of the great articles of food and effect a saving of child life. It is probably no exaggeration to say that something like one in ten oir twelve of all the deaths that occur may be traced to. the Use. of milk. The great* majority of these derails occur, of course, amongst children under one year'of age. Yet if children dlo not receive a, liberal mupply of milk during the first decade of life they suffer in comparison with their batter fed fellows. The explanation of the paradox is only too simple. Milk is a unique food, in that it conlains in happy proportions, representatives of all the varieties of foodstuff necessary to life. P rote ids, sugair, fat, mineral salts and water are all there. Unfortunately, when we. have said :necessairy to life” wo have not specified whose life. Milk is ail almost perfect food for man, who stands at the apex of the world of life, hut it also- happens to bo admirably suited to the bacteria, those members of the fungi or lowest order of plants who occupy the lowest position in the living world. Now, between these two extremes', man and the bacteria, there is perennial war. Healthy people kill them by trillions of trillions. They are invading me with every breath I draw as I write, and dying by scores in my mouth, nose and bronchial tubes'. On the other hand 1 , the overwhelming proportion of deaths from disease are .caused by them, whilst they certainly hasten the oncoming of every death from old' age.

Let us enumerate the diseases which are at present disseminated by milk. The most deadly in the infantile diarrhoea, of which our children die like flies in the summer months. It is the chief factor i.n the production of our infantile mortality by which one child in every seven dies before the first anniversary of its birthday. Then there is tuberculosis, the most deadly of all diseases. The tubercle bacillus finds in milk one of its mtost convenient vehicles. So do the bacteria of diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid and, in certain parts of the world, cholera and plague 1 . Many more might be named. So- admirable a nutrient medium for bacteria is milk that bacteriologists habitually use it for their “cultures'," finding that most bacteria thrive on it as well as on any artificial concoction.

Now, we cannot hope to gain a clear understanding of this very imporant invention that has recently been perfected by Messrs Just and Hat-maker unless it be clearly understood that the fluid state of milk results from a subtle device of mature for tire convenience of the young mammal, and is not an essential character of the food. It needs but the slightest addition of a host of substances to a tumblerful of milk in order to convert it into a solid. Milk is not a drink —or, at any rate, not a beverage. It is essentially a solid food, and, indeed, is converted into such within a few seconds of being swallowed. The fluid state is necessitated' by the natural conditions under which milk is transferred from the mammalian mother ■to her off-spying; but- it is a source- of much inconvenience and also of the gravest danger when milk is purloined by man for his own uses.

The Just-Ha-cmaker process removes all the water from milk by the application of beat and converts it into a light yellow flaky powder, which can instantly be irecanverted into something almost indistinguishable from fresh milk by the addition of water. All bacteria are killed in the process. The bacteria of disease have been purposely added to the milk—as I learn, from a monograph published

by the Carnegie Research Laboratory—and after the process was complete not a trace of them could be found. After 400 separate examinations it- was possible to say that the powder is absolutely sterile when it comes from the drying machine. Being sterile and dry it will, of ooluitee,, keep indefinitely, • provided no germs are allowed access to it. (Samples property packed in air-clght boxes have been sent round the world, and have been found to be perfectly sterile—i.e., germ free —on 'their return. Assuming for the moment that the milk proves to be an efficient food—as has already been demonstrated —we may predict certain remarkable consequences from this new invention.

What, for instance,, will ho the role cf the town dairy if factories are set up on farms, and can send yc-u a year’s supply, of milk by post at a moment’s notice ? The whole problem of milk transmission, threatens to be solved at a single stroke. As for Arctic explorers, armies in the field,, ocean liners, and so forth _ I fancy they will not be sorry to have their milk in a form which takes up practically no space and which keeps indefinitely. Last summer, during the: three hottest months, when the warmth encourages the multiplication of the bacteria in milk, and when the infant mortality in New York is at its highest, the department of health in that city carried out an extensive serieis of practical tests with the dried milk. All the steps were taken to ensure that careless mothers should not prepare some of the milk by adding water to it, and then allow it to stand exposed and turn sceptic in the usual way. Eight hundred and fifty children were chosen, at random from the poorest class. Not a single child died, and' every one gained weight. Under or dill any conditions, I suppose, about 200 of those children would; have died.

These experiments are still continuing, though equally striking results cannot be obtained until the deadly hat weather comes again. It appears that the reconstituted milk, when it is clotted! in the stomach, forms a light flaky cuird jurat- likei that' produced from human milk, and much mere.digestible than the heavy large clots formed in the human: stomach from cow’s milk. These facts are quoted on the authority of Dr Magill. who> i's Chief of the Research Department at the Carnegie Laboratory in New York.

I should add, of course, that the milk was humanised in the usual way, by adding sugar, cream, and so 1 forth, according to the age and state of each particular child. It is impossible for mo to resist the conclusion, from the evidence before me, that this milk liais been subjected to the most exhaustive and properly conceived investigation from every standpoint, and that the results are unequivocally satisfactory. One criticism, however, I must make here. Wo have 'lately' found that “humanised” milk, isucli as that supplied by the excellent, municipalities 'of Battersea, Leith and many other places, is not an absolutely perfect counterfeit for human milk. It may set up, occasionally, a condition of scurvy such as never results from the use of real human milk., The wards of our children’s hospitals are full of little people who are suffering from the use N of the abominable proprietary foods, which are so largely advertised and consumed in this country. If you ask the physician in charge “What is this case?” he usually answers. “'Oh I —,” naming a “household word” that indicates 'the proprietor of the particular milk preparation in question. It seems that the process of boiling or sterilising milk destroys some “anti-scoabiutio principle”—as in our present ignorance we must call it—and that the child suffers in consequence. lam not yet satisfied that the dried milk is free from this defect. Of course, the remedy is the easiest thing in the world. The addition of tlie juice of an orange every day will supply the. deficiency. Only observe that we cannot, be quite certain that the dried milk is an absolutely complete diet for an infant.