Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/512

494 chief sources of difficulty. He says the waste of child life in densely populated centers, especially in New York, is enormous. Last year the bodies of three thousand and forty-two children under five years of age were received at the morgue and nearly all were buried in Potter's Field, killed by poverty and ignorance, want of proper diet and care. In France, out of two hundred and fifty thousand infants dying annually, M. Rouchard, President of the Society for the Protection of Children, says one hundred thousand might be saved by careful nursing. This knowledge caused the passage of the bill forbidding the use of solid food for infants under one year of age, unless advised by a physician.

In the effort to guard against the tuberculosis germ our own Government is taking action, and the United States Department of Agriculture, in connection with work upon the forthcoming report upon tuberculosis, has issued a circular giving simple directions for the sterilization of milk. Dr. Salmon, in his report, comments upon the danger of contagion, and says the sterilization of milk can be satisfactorily accomplished by a very simple apparatus, which he describes at length. Any suitable utensil—whether a bottle plugged with cotton or a Soxhlet stopper, a fruit jar loosely covered, or whatever vessel may be used—is to be placed inside of a larger one of metal containing water, the requirements being that the interior vessel shall be raised above the bottom of the other, and that the water shall reach nearly or quite as high as the milk. The apparatus is then heated until the water reaches 155º F., when it is removed from the heat and kept tightly covered for half an hour. The cooling after this should be rapid, and the bottles kept in a low temperature. A hole may be punched in the cover of the pail, a cork inserted, and a chemical thermometer put through the cork, so that the bulb dips into the water, or a dairy thermometer may be used by removing the lid from time to time.

An ordinary double boiler will be found to meet all the requirements, using the dairy thermometer. If preferred, the Arnold steamer or the Freeman Pasteurizer will be found convenient. Dr. Chapin says that fifteen minutes' heating will be found sufficient, as a rule.

The problem seems to be, in infant dietetics, to approximate such milk to the composition of human milk. That this can be done has been demonstrated by expert analyses, results showing that the value of this care is not overestimated by those who thoroughly comprehend its purpose. The casein of the milk, being the objectionable feature for infant diet, must be treated in such a manner as to make it digestible, supplying at the same time the constituents required as a consequence of this treatment, by the addition of sugar and fat.