Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children

by Pye Henry Chavasse

139. Have you any remarks to make on cow's milk as an article of food?

Cow's milk is a valuable, indeed, an indispensable article of diet, for the young; it is most nourishing, wholesome, and digestible. The finest and the healthiest children are those who, for the first four or five years of their lives, are fed principally upon it. Milk ought then to be their staple food. No child, as a rule, can live, or, if he live, can be healthy, unless milk be the staple article of his diet. There is no substitute for milk. To prove the fattening and strengthening qualities of milk, look only at a young calf who lives on milk, and on milk alone! He is a Samson in strength, and is "as fat as butter;" and all young things if they are in health are fat!

Milk, then, contains every ingredient to build up the body, which is more than can be said of any other known substance besides. A child may live entirely, and grow, and become both healthy and strong, on milk and on milk alone, as it contains every constituent of the human body. A child cannot "live by bread alone," but he might on milk alone! Milk is animal and vegetable—it is meat and bread—it is food and drink—it is a fluid, but as soon as it reaches the stomach it becomes a solid [Footnote: How is milk in the making of cheese, converted into curds? By rennet. What is rennet? The juice of a calf's maw or stomach. The moment the milk enters the human maw or stomach, the juice of the stomach converts it into curds—into solid food, just as readily as when it enters a calfs maw or stomach, and much more readily than by rennet, as the fresh juice is stronger than the stale. An ignorant mother often complains that because, when her child is sick, the milk curdles, that it is a proof that it does not agree with him! If, at those times, it did not curdle, it would, indeed, prove that his stomach was in a wretchedly weak state; she would then have abundant cause to be anxious.]—solid food; it is the most important and valuable article of diet for a child in existence. It is a glorious food for the young, and must never, on any account whatever, in any case be dispensed with. "Considering that milk contains in itself most of the constituents of a perfect diet, and is capable of maintaining life in infancy without the aid of any other substance, it is marvellous that the consumption of it is practically limited to so small a class; and not only so, but that in sick-rooms, where the patient is surrounded with every luxury, arrow-root, and other compounds containing much less nutriment, should so often be preferred to it."—The Times.

Do not let me be misunderstood. I do not mean to say, but that the mixing of farinaceous food—such as Lemann's Biscuit Powder, Robb's Biscuit, Hard's Farinaceous Food, Brown and Polson's Corn Flour, and the like, with the milk, is an improvement, in some cases—a great improvement; but still I maintain that a child might live and thrive, and that for a lengthened period, on milk—and on milk alone!

A dog will live and fatten for six weeks on milk alone; while he will starve and die in a shorter period on strong beef-tea alone!

It is a grievous sin for a milkman to adulterate milk. How many a poor infant has fallen a victim to that crime!—for crime it may be truly called.

It is folly in the extreme for a mother to bate a milkman down in the price of his milk; if she does, the milk is sure to be either of inferior quality, or adulterated, or diluted with water; and woe betide the poor unfortunate child if it be either the one or the other! The only way to insure good milk is, to go to a respectable cow-keeper, and let him be made to thoroughly understand the importance of your child having genuine milk, and that you are then willing to pay a fair remunerative price for it. Rest assured, that if you have to pay one penny or even twopence a quart more for genuine milk, it is one of the best investments that you ever have made, or that you are ever likely to make in this world! Cheap and inferior milk might well be called cheap and nasty; for inferior or adulterated milk is the very essence, the conglomeration of nastiness; and, moreover, is very poisonous to a child's stomach. One and the principal reason why so many children are rickety and scrofulous, is the horrid stuff called milk that is usually given to them. It is a crying evil, and demands a thorough investigation and reformation, and the individual interference of every parent. Limited Liability Companies are the order of the day; it would really be not a bad speculation if one were formed in every large town, in order to insure good, genuine, and undiluted milk.

Young children, as a rule, are allowed to eat too much meat. It is a mistaken notion of a mother that they require so much animal food. If more milk were given and less meat, they would he healthier, and would not be so predisposed to disease, especially to diseases of debility, and to skin-disease.

I should strongly recommend you, then, to be extravagant in your milk score. Each child ought, in the twenty-four hours, to take at least a quart of good, fresh, new milk. It should, of course, be given in various ways,—as bread and milk, rice-puddings, milk and differents kinds of farinaceous food, stir-about, plain milk, cold milk, hot milk, any way, and every way, that will please his palate, and that will induce him to take an abundant supply of it. The "advice" I have just given you is of paramount importance, and demands your most earnest attention. There would be very few rickety children in the world if my "counsel" were followed out to the very letter.

140. But suppose my child will not take milk, he having an aversion to it, what ought then to be done?