OUR BABIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10092, 4 March 1911, Page 4

OUR BABIES.

(By.HYGEIA.) tPnblished under the auspices pf the Society for tho Health of Women and Children.) " It is wiser to put up a,fence at tho top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." ADDRESSES OF PLUNKET NURSES AND SECRETARIES. Dunedin—Plunket Nurses Ellis and Laing. Telephone 1138. Office of the Society, Health Department Rooms, Liverpool Street, Donfldin. Office hours, daily (except Stindays), from 3 to 4 p.m. Honorary secretary, Mrs Edmond, Melvillp Street. Telephone S3. Christchurch-Plunket Nurses Falconer and Hiokson. Office of the Society, Wardell s Buildings, Ctehel Street. Telephone 851. Offioe hours, 2 to 8 p.m. daily, except Saturdays and Sundays. Honorary secretary pro tem, Mrs C. Reid, Knowles .Street, St Albans. Telephone 1071. Wellington—Plunket Nurse M'Donald, 73, Aio Street Telephone 2425. Honorary secre- '. tary, Mis M'Vicar, Brougham Street, City. Telephone 2642. Auckland—Plunket fturses Chappell and Brien, Park Street. Telephone BJI. Office • of the Sooiety, 2, Chancery Street. Telefhoae 629. Office hours, Tuesdays and 'ridays, 2.35 to 4 p.m. Honorary Secret tary, Mrs "W. H. Paries, "MarirToto, Symonds Street. Telephone 240. Hapier—Plunket Nurse Donald. Masonic Ho- • tel. Telephone 87. Honorary secretary, Mrs E. A. W. Henley, P.O. Box 64. Tele'phone 147. Hew Plymouth—Plunket Nurse Murray, Imperial Hotel. Telephone 123. Offios, Town ' „• Hall, Wednesdays and Fridays, 2 to 4 . p.m. Honorary secretary, Mis R. J. Matthews, Fitzroy. Telephone 104. Timaru—Plunket Nurse Bowman. Office of the Society. Arcade Chambers. Telephone 814. Office hours, 3.30 to 4.30 .and 6.30 to 7.80. Honorary secretary, Mrs Smith--spn, Faillie, Sefton Street. Telephone 230. lirteroargill—Plunket Nurse O'Shea, Allen's Hall, Kelvin Street. Honorary secretary, "Mrs Handyside, G-ala Street. Aihburton—Plunket Nurse Falconer. Office •"• of Society, Bullock's Arcade. Nurse in .attendance every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Honorary secretary pro tem, Miss : : Standish. floeiety's Baby Hospital, Karitane Home, Anderson's Bay, Dunedin. Telephone 1985. "' Demonstrations' on points of interest to mothers ate given by the Matron every ' Wednesday afternoon, from 2.80 to All moiheTS.are invited. Meaeages may be left at any trims at the vPlunjcet Nurses' offices or private addresses. All other information available Vfrom the honorary secretary of each .•r/rancn. PLUNKET NURSES' SERVICES FREE.

DRIED MILK.

The followfhjg letter has been received- from Mr IX J. Nathan cotacorjrring the us© of " Dried Milk " in baby-feed-ing, and I am glad to publish it verbatim, although the views are not in acwra with! the teachings of the Society \ for the Health of Women and Children. (In oijdW to facilitate reference in my reply, I have numbered the paragraphs of Mr Nathan's letter from (1) tof (10).)

LETTER CONCERNING GLAXO. Wellington, January 16, 1911. To " Hygeia." Dear Madam, —(1) I should! be very pleased if you could make an appointment to meet me. either at my office or elsewhere. I have been watching your articles on Baby Food for some time with a considerable amount of interest.

(2) I have been in personal commimioation with Drs Hutchinson and Still in London, and think I know Bomething about milk. You are aware that we are making dried milk in large quantities, but I gather from your article of . January 14 that you haiye not had "Glaxo" brought under your notice.. This is a variation of the milk, and probably if I use the_ word " humanised " as you have used it, yon will understand that on analysis it (Glaxo) would give almost the same composition as human milk.

Apart from this question, the point that interested me most is your statement, "the 'life' has been heated aai of them." (That is out of dried or otherwise condensed milk.) Now thia point that Dr Somerville, of King's College, London, studied for oyer six months, and he was unable to make this statement. I am sure he, as woll as myself, would he'glad to have ycur authority for the above statement.

(4) Have you oyer, after liquefying the Dried Milk, tried to use rennet with itP (5), I would also be pleased to know what authority you have for saying that the living, principles are lacking in the Dried Milk.

(6) If you could give me half an hour and see the various i.eports of the Board of Health, Finsbury, and many others frpm leading baby doctors in England, I think I could convince you that the preparation of "Glaxo'' is manufactured absolutely to fill all the requirements you desire.

I also notice that you make use ofthe wordj, " the baby digested comr pletely." Well, I would like to point out that the highest authorities that we consulted, and under'whom we are! acting, have pointed out to us that fats are not digested in the ordinary sense, but are absorbed. That is why " Glaxo ", is/a much better preparation, and much easier of digestion, than any "humanised" milk. The character of the cream has beeni changed into a fat, and the proteids are absolutely soluble and digestible. This latter fact has beto proved in the leading London Hospital, both on babies and also in an artificial stomach.

(8) We could boast that there is no result to be found in'using Dried Milk as'there would be in using even humanised mili. The difficulty of the digestion of the proteids'is absolutely overcome.

(9; I would like to have your assistance in placing this article" more firmly on the market, in New' Zealand. We haive not bothered)'with it so far here. We are using all our efforts in Great Britain" where the'population is* greater. {10). I hope this letter has not weaned you, but I have a good.deal more to say, and I would like an opportunity of' saying it. ; F4EPLY BY "HYGELA."

In paragraph 2 of our correspondent's, letter, he says that his firm makes] Dried' Milk, on a large scale, that he has been im ""personal communication with DobtorsOHutchinson and Still in London," and* that ho thinks he " knows something.about rriilk." Here and in, the rest of the letter'is conveyed the confident assertion not'only of an' extensive knowledge with regard to milk in general, but also the conviction of the-. writer that more weight of authority should be attached' to his ideas on this subject'than to what,has been said-regarding, the,, in infant, feeding of dried and otherwise condensed milks in our Babies' Column—from which ho differs, especially regarding the claims of the particular dried milk which his firm manufactures, viz., Glaxo.

The citation of the names of Doctors Hutchinson and Still, of London (apparently again referred to in paragraph 7 as "tho highest authorities that we consulted 1 , andJ under whom we are acting") is clearlv intended to convey the impression 'that these well-known physicians are with the makers of Glaxo, and at variance with what has appeared' in this* column. In reality, as I shall show presentely, the reverse is the «.<*se. But even if two eminent doctors did range themselveav against the facts and lawa of Nature and the findings of science, the truth would be in no way affected thereby. It is always a mistake to cloud a simple issue by tho introduction of misleading or irrelevant matter tending to confuse.rather than throw light on points' under consideration. As Professor Stanley Jevons, flays in his book on Logic (when dealing with tho subject of Fallacious

Arguments): " Whoever uses what is known as argumentum ad homineum (that is, an argument which rests not upon tho merits of the case., but the character or position of those engaged in it) commits this fallacy."

However, as I have ventured to hint Doctors Hutchinson .and Still are not in accord with the proprietors of Glaxo. In his well-known text-book, "Food and the Principles of Dietetics," page 450, Dr Hutchinson gives a table showing the chemical composition of the " Humanised Milk" supplied by the Aylesbury Dairy Company, of London, as' compared with Nature's own standard, viz., the milk of the human mother. I add three columns showing respectively (1) the composition of "humanised milk," prepared in accordance with the recipes given by the Society for the Health of Women and Children; (2) the composition of Glaxo, as given on page 30 of the " Glaxo Baby Book " ; and (3) Cow's Milk. TABLE SHOWING AVERAGE COMPOSITION OF VARIOUS MILKS.

The percentage of proteid iix human milk given in the above table is somewhat higher than the figures arrived at by very extensive analyses of mothers' milk made during the last ten years. Thus the average is given by Professor Raudnitz, of Prague, as commonly varying from 1.1 to 1.6 per cent, or, say, an average of 1.3 per cent—in other words, from a half to a third of the proportion found in Glaxo. Properly speaking, Glaxo is therefore not a humanised milk. On comparing the Glaxo column with thecow|s milk column, it will be at once realised that the trace of sugar of milk and cream added bv tho manufacturers does not cause the composition of this particular form of dried milk to vary appreciably from ordinary unmodified dried cow/s milk. Commenting on the Aylesbury Company's humanised milk, Dr Hutchinson says:— "Both milks tend to be too rich in fat and! too poor in sugar. The first contains to little proteid, and the second rather much. No. 1 is intended for young and delicate infants; No. 2 for those who are older and stronger. We saw, however, that human milk does not tend to get richer in proteid as lactation proceeds, and for that reason the preparation of a stronger milk for older infants is not physiologically sound 1 /' (Page 450.) Seeing that 'Dr Hutchinson pronounces it' " physiologically unsound " to give a baby 2 per cent of proteid (on the ground that 2 per cent is too much), how can he possibly approve of Glaxo, which shows on analysis 3 per cent I OVERTAXING BABY'S KIDNEYS.

The essential purpose and work of the kidneys is to extract from the blood and excrete the waste products resulting from the proteid materials taken into the body. Nature has designed these organs of the right size and ixwer to carry' out this important duty, thus ridding the system of what we know to be the most poisonous of all the effete substances poured into the circulation. But, perfect as the kidneys are for the performance of their allotted task, Nature has not fitted them for doing day after day two or three times as much work as she intends them to fulfil. Especially does Nature resent the overworking of immature organs at the ape appointed for their most rapid growth and development. Such transgressions of her laws, whether witting or unwitting, are always followed by punishment aooner or later—there is an inevitable Nemesis ahead. The tiny, delicate kidneys of babies are not fit subjects for over-pressure. DON'T MONKEY WITH NATURE.

One of the first injunctions of physiology is that which warns us against the overworking of living structures in the course of building, because such overwork gravely interferes with development—overtaxed baby organs tend to be stunted later on. We cannot " monkey with Nature" with impunity. She may not exact during childhood any apparent penalty for a baby's unconscious disobedience to her laws, .hut the future man or woman whose kidneys are rendered specially liable to. fail prematurely, before or during middle life, will not find much comfort in the complacent parental remark: " Well, you grew up all right, any way. The wrong food we gave you durmg infancy did not seem to do any harm at the time, so far as we could see—in fact, vou took tho first prize at a baby show.*' '

'" The pride of having been a prize, baby, judged merely from the outside, js not much compensation for having,

a wrong inside later on in life—for being doomed, say, to Bright's disease. .

DYSPEPSIA AND CONSTIPATION. I have mentioned nothing as to the harm found to result in practice from abuse of the digestive organs through the giving of an excess of proteid material during infancy. The evidence on that point is startling and overwhelming, but it must stand over until next week.

f: 3 , „ i ll ■4 •4 o <3« Proteid 1.3 2.2 t.5 1.3to1.4J 3 | 3.2 Fat ... 4.0 3.6 3.5 3.5 to 4 3.8 3.9 Sugar of Milk 4.7 5.2 6.5 6to7 5.8 5.1