Identifier: marylandmedicalj4519medi (find matches)
Title: Maryland medical journal
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland
Subjects: Medicine
Publisher: Baltimore : Manning and Ashby
Contributing Library: Yale University, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library
Digitizing Sponsor: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the National Endowment for the Humanities

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ties during June, Julyand August does not of itself produce the rapid increase of themortality among infants, because babies exposed to precisely thesame surroundings, but nourished at the mothers breast, as a ruleescape summer diarrhea, and there is no unusual infant mortalityfrom disease other than that of the class under consideration dur-ing the warm season ; in fact, infants stand hot weather better thanadults. Dr. Holt some time ago collected 1943 cases ending fatallyfrom diarrheal disorders, and found that but 3 per cent, of thesewere exclusively breast-fed. The same writer states that childrenamong the poor in tenements enjoy immunity from intestinal dis-ease just in proportion as they are breast-fed and just so long asthey are so, but as soon as artificial feeding is begun, diarrhealdiseases are prevalent. It must be conceded, then, that to bringa child up on a bottle through its first summer requires unusualskill and is attended at best with danger. It is difficult under the
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244 MARYLAND MEDICAL JOURNAL june, 1902 most favorable circumstances to adapt a nutriment exactly to theneeds of the particular baby, yet any great variation from thenormal injures the alimentary mucosa, lowers the resistance ofthe patient to deleterious products, and so renders the infant moreliable to intestinal disorders. Cows milk, for obvious reasons, must be the main substitutefood for children who cannot be nourished at the breast. Of thevarious artificial foods with which the market is glutted none con-tain ingredients in the proportions suited to the baby, and manyof them are positively harmful. A few can be used to advantagewhen added to diluted milk. These facts being true, it is of theutmost importance that all children who are artificially nourished,but particularly the offspring of the poor, among whom the great-est mortality occurs each summer, should have pure, properly-modified cows milk, thus making it as suitable as possible to theweak digestive tract of the baby. L

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