OUR BABIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 648, 4 March 1914, Page 2

OUR BABIES.

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Women and Children.

" It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom."

LIVERPOOL MILK SUPPLY.

Regarding the so-called humanised milk issued to the poor by the municipality in Liverpool, as described last week, it should be understood that no attempt is made to secure anything beyond a rough modification and grading. Sugar of milk is not used because cane sugar is so much cheaper and sterilisation is effected merely by boiling. Even so, the price is, of course, much lower than would have to be charged if the depots were to be self-supporting. The issue of milk for babies in Liverpool is a municipal charity. Light is thrown on this by the cost of humanised milk in London, say, for instance, that supplied by the Aylesbury Dairy Company. Their preparation is issued in pint and quart bottles, and in only two grades yet the charge is 8d for a pint and Is 2d for a quart. If the milk were especially graded for each child, as ia done in Dunedin, the charge would have to be still higher. ELECTROCUTING MICROBES IN MILK. So far as it goes, the work done in Liverpool has been . highly beneficial; but the authorities aim much higher. A practical experimental work which is now being carried out at the university by Dr I. M. Beattie, Professor of Bacteriology, and Mr F. C. Lewis, working in conjunction with the municipal authorities in general and the Infant Life Preservation Committee in particular, bids fair to lead to practical results of world-wide importance in the future immediate. The work they are engaged in bringing to practical fruition is the subjecting of ordinary impure city milk to a powerful alternating ekctric current with a view to killing the microbes. They find that they can electrocute the microbe without in any way hanging the vital properties of the milk itself, and they ace sanguine this will be practicable on a large Bcale, without appreciably increaing the price to the public. At the time when Dr Truby King left England a small elcetrical plant for sterilising about 30 gallons an hour was almost ready to start work. The next step would De to arrange for a much larger installation, capable of sterilising or an adequate scale for public distribution.

The temptation to resort to superheated dried milks for the poor has been very strong, and in some cities large quantities of Glaxo and other such preparations, issued at about a shilling a pound, and thus costing the consumer about the same as ordinary milk, have been largely sold for infants, and the advent of safe sterilised, but otherwise unchanged "electrified" milk would be a great boon to mothers and babies. The following extracts from an article by Professor Beattie on the subject will be read with interest: — "The advantages of the process are that the milk is not heated up unduly, that no coagulation can occur, that a continuois stream of milk can be sterilised, and therefore that the method will be available for sterilising on a large scale, such as city supplies for infant feeding, etc., A high tension electrical current is used, and the exposure of the milk to this for a very short time practically kills all the microbes."

A special demonstration was given to Dr Truby King by means of a 3mall laboratory apparatus, the impure milk being poured into a glass funnel and run through electrified tubes into a cream pint bottle in the course of a few minutes. This milk showed no evidence of anv change. It was taken from Liverpool to London, and kept well for several days without any special precautions. Professor Beattie says :

"The taßte of the milk is not altered, the fresh 'bouquet' being as perfectly discernible after as before treatment. Indeed, upon tb.B samples being submitted to expert dairymen, the opinion they expressed was that they could not detect any difference. "Apart from chemical analyses, feeding experiments were made on a series of kittens, and the nutritive properties of the milk thereby proved to have been unaltered. In point of fact, the increase in the weight of the animals fed with the electrified milk was somewhat in advance of that of similar kittens fed on ordinary milk; but we do not attach undue importance to this. "Several series of experiments were made with milk infested with tubercle bacilli. Animals inoculated with thiq milk developed extensive tuberculosis; but those inoculated with the milk after it had been subjected to the electrical treatment did not show the slightest sign of tuberculosis." UTILITY FOR NEW ZEALAND. If the results on a large scale prove as satisfactory as Professor Beattie anticipates, the electrical treatment of milk is likely to become a very important matter for us, where such cities as Wellington the supply of pure milk has hiterto baffled all efforts.

New Zealanders will be gratified to know that Dr Beattie, who Is Professor of Pathology and Bacteriology at Liverpool University, was born in Otago, and has already achieved a distinguished reputation in the Old Country.