SAVING THE BABIES

Otago Witness, Issue 3832, 23 August 1927, Page 69

SAVING THE BABIES

STILL BETTER METHODS. ADDRESS BY STR TRUBY KING. Ou Wednesday afternoon, in the course of his address to the annual meeting of the Dunedin branch of the New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, Sir Truby King outlined the very latest methods of infant feeding to be advocated by the Plunket Society. These he described as being as near to perfection in artificial feeding as it is possible to attain. “I do not think there will ever be simplification beyond this,” he said. “It ought to be fool-proof. It has been said that the irreducible minimum of infant mortality is 4 per cent., but in New Zealand we have already got below this figure. 1 believe that, in the future, it can be reduced to 2 per cent.”

Before describing the society’s latest simplifications and improvements in the artificial feeding of babies. Sir Truby outlined the steps by which the price of sugar of milk had been brought down to the level which mothers could be induced to use it, instead of cane sugar. He said that up to 1907, before the Plunket Society was founded, the ruling retail price throughout the Dominion was from 2s 6d to 5s per lb; and practically none was used for babies. He got over this shortly before the society was formed by himself importing wholesale and retailing through the grocers at from lOd to Is per lb. After the War broke out the price rose to half a crown and more, and even now stood at from Is 8d to Is 9d per lb, and again cane and beet sugar (the worst forms for babies) have come into more or less .extensive use.

In order to get matters on to a better basis in this connection, and to meet the growing demand for Plunket emulsion, not only in New Zealand, but erseas, a new society had recently been formed in Wellington—viz., the Karitane Products Society, Ltd., which had been founded as an adjunct to the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children —generally know.i as the “Plunket Society.” The ultimate aims and objects of the new society were the same as those of the parent organisation; but its special field of wor*i was practically limited to manufacturing and supplying at strictly moderate prices the best and highest grades of pure fo dstuf 5 - and preparations for use in infancy and early childhood.

As half of the society’s baby-feeding preparations were already shipped to London, Australia, South Africa, and elsewhere, and as outside orders ./.re steadily increasing, more or less profit would probably be made in the long run. If this took place, the surplus would be devoted solely to promoting the Plunket Society's mission (“to help the mothers and save the babies”) in New Zealand and_ elsewhere. The directors had undertaken and made themselves personally responsible for finance; their services were entirely gratuitous—nothing whatever being payable in the way of interest, directors’ fees, or allowances of any kind. The following is the directorate: —Sir Truby King, C.M.G. (general president Plunket Society), Mr A. W. Blair (barrister, chairman Karitane Products Society), Mrs Theo. G. Gray (Wellington, New Zealand), Mrs Henry Hall (president Wellington Branch Plunket Society), Mr W. D. Hunt (managing director Wright, Stephenson’s), Miss Mary Truby King (Wellington, New Zealand), Miss A. Pattrick (director of Plunket Nursing, N.Z.), Mr P. E. Pattrick (public accountant, Wellington, New Zealand), Miss Aleen Stevens (Wellington, New Zealand).

The object of the society’s factory was to supply the best form of fats, oils, and sugars for use in the artificial feeding of babies; and the Karitane preparations would be procurable from the Plunket Society or its nurses. They would always be glad to give full explanation, advice, and help, and would spare no pains to prevent early weaning, or resort to artificial food of any kind, until absolutely necessary.

For convenience of world-wide use and reference the two present leading preparations pf the new society have been given in short, identifying names with the prefix “Kari’’ (short for Karitane), viz., “Kariol” nad “Karilac.” “Kariol,” hitherto known as Plunket emulsion, of New Zealand cream, afforded the best, simplest, and safest means of gradually bringing the fat ’.ement up to the full standard of humanised milk. The “Karilac” series was a set of graduated sugar mixtures (numbered from 1 to 5) consisting of sugar of milk and refined dextrose specially prepared for systematically grading the sugar element in the baby’s food up to the full stan- | dard for artificial feeding. Karilac also rendered the crude casein of cow’s milk more effective and digestible, and thus does away with any need for using lime water. This improvement was brought about mainly by including in the Karilac a trace (about 5 per cent.) of pure, granulated edible gelatine. The following recipe for mothers preparing humanised milk in the home showed the extreme simplicity of the Plunket Society’s new, perfected formula: Cow’s milk, 2 teacnpfuls (13oz); Karilac, 2 level tablespoonfuls; Kariol, V 2 level tablespoonfuls; boiled water to make up to one pint and a-half. Dextrose was not only the most easily and quickly absorbed form of sugar ; it was the type into which all other sugars (including even sugar of milk) had to be converted before they could be made use of in the human body. “Dextrose” was the only 'sugar used by surgeons for injecting into the blood vessels in order to supply immediate nutriment in emergencies, prevent collapse and sustain life. It had been recently proved that delicate, emaciated babies would readily absorb and make full use of IJ. times as much dextrose as they could deal with if restricted to sugar of milk. Hence the

advantage of starting artificial feeding with a full proportion of dextrose, and only gradually bringing up the sugar of milk to Nature’s standard.

The prices of the Karitane products will be from 2s 6d per lb for Kariol to an average of Is 3d per lb for the Karilac series. The latter are systematically graded so tha't the baby is easily trained to take its full percentage of sugar of milk by safe stages, commencing with 10 per cent, sugar of milk and 90 per cent, dextrose, and ending with 90 sugar of milk to 10 per cent, dextrose. Pure sugar of milk will be retailed at Is 5d per lb. The new products were to be made available by the society immediately.