of the bicarbonate is sufficient for the purpose. An excess of alkali used in this manner may be detected by the milk turning turmeric paper brown, even after it has been kept some hours, and by the ash obtained by evaporating a little to dryness, and then heating it to dull redness, effervescing with an acid. (See below.)
⁂ Milk should not be kept in lead or zinc vessels, as it speedily dissolves a portion of these metals, and becomes poisonous.
Concluding Remarks. The principal difference between cows’ milk and human milk consists in the former containing more casein and less sugar of milk than the latter. The remarkable indisposition to coagulate is another character which distinguishes human milk from cows’ milk. Prof. Falkland, who has practically investigated the subject has prepared a nutritive fluid for infants from cows’ milk, closely resembling that of the healthy adult woman. His process is, however, unnecessarily complicated, and, therefore, unsuited to those who would have to employ it in the nursery. To remove this objection we have adopted the following formula:—Sugar of milk, 2 oz.; hot water, 1⁄4 pint; dissolve, and, when the liquor has become quite cold, add it to fresh cows’ milk, 3⁄4 pint, and stir them together. This quantity, prepared morning and evening, will constitute the proper food for an infant of from 5 to 8 months old. More may be allowed it if it ‘craves’ it; but there must be no ‘cramming.’ At first it will be advisable to remove a little of the cream from the milk before adding to it the saccharine solution; but after a few days this will be found to be unnecessary, and, indeed, injurious. One very important particular to be attended to is, the employment of pure cows’ milk, obtained from a healthy grass-fed animal only. With this precaution, and the use of a good FEEDING-BOTTLE, the infant will thrive nearly as well as on the breast of any human female, excepting its mother’s. (See below.)
Asses’ milk closely resembles human milk in colour, smell, and consistence, but it contains rather less cream. (See below.)
Ewes’ milk closely resembles cows’ milk, than which, however, it is slightly richer in cream.
Goats’ milk, for the most part, resembles cows’ milk, but its consistence is much greater, and it contains much more solid matter. (See below.)
Mares’ milk, in consistence; is between that of cows’ and human milk. Its cream is not converted into butter by agitation. See Butter, Cheese, Lactic Acid, &c.
Milk as a cause or carrier of disease.—Milk of a mother labouring under strong mental emotion is, as is well known, capable of seriously endangering the health of the suckling babe. Payne narrates the case of a woman suffering under a nervous affection
whose milk, two hours after an attack of the disease, became viscid, like the white of an egg. Similarly, a deterioration and consequent alteration in properties is induced in the milk of the cow if she be over driven, exhausted, or harassed. The food of the animal likewise exercises an influence on the quality of its milk; thus when cows are fed on turnips, wormwood, decayed leaves, and plants of the cabbage or onion families, the flavour of these substances is imparted to their milk. The milk of animals that have fed on poisonous or deleterious plants is capable of setting up toxic symptoms in human beings partaking of it. In June, 1875, the inhabitants of a certain quarter of Rome were attacked with an epidemic, distinguished by great gastro-intestinal irritation. The cause of the outbreak was traced to the use of goats’ milk, yielded by goats that had eaten of the meadow saffron, the Colchicum autumnale. It also appears that in the Western States of America the milk of cows that have fed on the poison-oak, the Rhus toxicodendron, has on several occasions given rise to attacks of illness in children, marked by extreme weakness, vomiting, fall in bodily temperature, swollen and dry tongue, and constipation. Boiling seems to remove the dangerous properties of the milk.
Milk, as has been shown by Fuchs, is sometimes infested by a fungus, the Oidium lactis or Penicillium, which is capable of giving rise to gastric irritation, and sometimes to severe febrile gastritis.[39]