VALUE OF MILK

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1931, Page 7

VALUE OF MILK

NUTRITIONAL EXPERIMENT. MAORI SCHOOL CHILDREN. In reefent years experiments have been conducted in Britain to determine the influence of milk upon nutrition of school children. Dr. Cory Mann (1920), Dr. Orr (1928), Dr. Leighton (1929), Miss Clarke (1929), and Co-Work-ets have demonstrated from English, Scottish and Irish children that milk is one of the most valuable foods of mankind. Early in 1930, following routine examination of a native school, it occurred to a medical officer of the Health Department, after noting the prevalence of scabies, septic sores, and poor nutrition in this particular school, that milk feeding of these children along the lines of- the English experiments could not fail to be With the hearty co-operation of the head teacher of a school on the East Coast the experiment was initiated along community fines, departmental help being unsolicitedThe milk Was stored in a cOol spot at school, • covered with butter-muslin, until use. At 11 a.m., playtime, and again at 12, lunch time, pupils were assembled and given their milk ration by individual cups. The primer classes were given 1 pint, and the Standard classed half pint daily, throughout the whole 13 Weeks of spring term, 1930. Physical:' measurements Were recorded before milk feeding began, half-way through the term, and finally at the end of the thirteenth week. Height was recorded to ths nearest eighth inch; weight was recorded in kilograms to two decimal places. The mean of two observations was taken each time, on© observer recording height throughout, the other weight. The ‘test group gained twice the height and two and a half times the weight of the control group; Half .of the children, the younger ones, received one pint daily, this division between, primers and standards occurring in group aged 9 years. The elder children receiving half pint daily did equally well, as though the quantity given was of secondary importance to the regularity. It will be noted as in a British experiment (Leighton, 1929) that ages 12 .io 14 gained less- height and more weight than aged 5 to 7, while ages 16 to 11 did best in the present experiment. The control group gain was apparently average. For example, a 5-14 group of Toronto children gained in three months lib S|oz weight, whereas these control Maori children gained 11b in the same period.