Our Babies

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 23 November 1917, Page 4

Our Babies

(By Hygeia).

Published andar the auipicei of ti>« ■•clety for the Health of Women and Children.

"It i« wiser to pat up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain aa ambulance at the bottom."

The Milk Qnestion and Infant Welfare. Dr Cbamptaloup'a Addresa (Con tinned). Last week we gave part of Dr Champtaloup's lecture, delivered during Baby Week at Dunedin. The lecture wa3 well illustrated with beauti- , ful lantern slides, and concluded with a most interesting series of moving pictures illustrating the life of some of the bacteria which prove inimical to human beings, following on what appeared in last week's column, Dr Champtaloup said that mHk was the most difficult of all our standard articles of diet to obtain and handle in a safe and satisfactory manner. It required scrupulous care from pasture to pail, and from pail to palate—care which it seldom received. Furthermore, it decomposed more quickly than any other food. A funber reason why we had a milk qnestion was because most milk was consumed raw. We bad recently come to realise that uncooked articles, such as water, milk, oysters, lettuce, etc., might convey infection. Cooking destroyed germs. Therefore the sanitarian regarded cooking as odb of the most important hygienic safeguards that had ever been introduced by man for his protection. - Memo, by Hygeia. While agreeing with Dr Champtaloup that cooking renderß milk, oysters, . lettuces, etc., safer in the sense that inimical bacteria are killed by the high temperature, it must be borne in mind that the cooking and sterilising of all our food deprives us of very important substances which play an essential part in perfect growth and nntritioD. This ia just one of these situations in which we have to strike the happy mean between needless ex- • posure to rieks from the germs of hydatids and bacteria ou the one hand, and the deprivation of vital principles contained in raw food on the other. In this dilemma I consulted Lieu-tenant-colonel Burnett, Professor of Surgery, who, at the annual meeting of the Plunket Society some years ago, gave an important address on the risks of hydatids, and he stated the position very clearly as follows: As regards the Old Country, where hydatids are rare, one scarcely takes the question into account. I ate watercress quite freely when in England, but I would draw the line at' watercress here, because dogs are so - liable to infect cress with their excreta. Such salads as lettuce, celery, radishes, etc., specially grown in gardens for human consumption are much less liable to harbour the ova of hydatids, and if properly washed—a necessary routine of cleanliness in any case—there 13 practically no lisk in eating such vegetables. One is bound to mention lettuces, etc., as sources of the disease; but the one great channel by which the ova of hydatids gain access to the human beiDg was impure water drunk without boiling—water contaminated by the excreta of diseased dogs. I shall deal with this further in a later article. Dr Champtaloup's Address (Continued.) Milk was an essential article of food —one that was probably accountable for more sickness and more deaths than all other foods put together. The milk question was then, a real problem of first magnitude—worthy of our careful thought and attention. There were s. number of reasons why milk was sometimes harmful. The way we ns«d milk to-day was an artificial practice, if not an unnatural one. When we went against Nat'ire we must suffer the consequences. Nature never intended t l e milk of one animal to b<- used by the young of another. It was further quir® evident that Nature intended the milk to be partaken r.f while fresh, at iha fountain of its production. Many factors berfi'.'e time. temp-.-ra : r-, a> d bart' r-it ► a-t- i .d rhe d. tern.; ;-.ti:' or in fluencad the quality of the milk, such as handling, separating, .-nixing, transporting, and bottling. Dirt bacteria enter-d, decom position proceeded, so that a glass of '■ rd l narv rr- * rk - <• m I; m> t he very unlike the foud that left the mammary

gland. We would soon learn that bacteria loved milk. They loved it as much as the baby did. Milk was a perfect food for the growth and development of germs. They grew in milk at a prodigious rate, and hence the danger was sometimes very great. Infected milk migi.t cause disease and death in a week, month, or even a year or more afterwards. Babias were kiled with milk in an insidious way. It should never be forgotten that if water were to be drawn, as milk was, from the body of a cow Btanding in a stable, by the band of workmen of questionable cleaßliness, and then •tored and transported over long distances in imperfectly cleansed, closed cans, being further manipulated more or leas, and finally left at the doors at an uncertain hour of the day, few would care to drink it, because its pollution and staleness would be obvious. It was clear moreover, that milk required and deserved more careful treatment than water. Bacteria.

Dr ChampUloup went on to speak of bacteria, and tbeir discovery; of their forms and methods of development, and the diseases they produced. He referred to the reproduction of bacteria, and stated that it had been estimated that a single germ would in 24 hours give rise to 17 millions of descendants, and these descendants would in five days make a mass that would completely fill the oceans on the earth's surface. But he pointed nut that bacteria were constantly checked by adverse conditions and in other ways. The great majority of disease-pro-ducing bacteria would be killed if moi«t heat at 60deg centigrade or 140deg Fahrenheit were applied for 20 minutes. If applied for only 10 minutes, say, 150deg F must b-? used, while for an hour 135deg F. would be sufficient. The lecturer went on te deal next with pasteurisation at considerable length, stating that it saved life and prevented sickness. It concluding, Or Champtaloup said amongst the diseases known to be conveyed by milk might be mentioned tuberculosis, scarlet fever, diphtheria, gastrointestinal diseases of infants, septic sore throat, and typhoid fever. Some of the diseases mentioned were of bovine origin—tuberculosis and septic sore throat. . The majority, however, were of human origin, for cows did not suffer from typhoid fever and diph them.