A specially useful preparation for this pur pose, and one very easily used with "the milk mixture ", is a powder called " Peptogenic Milk Powder". It is sold in wide-mouthed bottles, and a wooden cap for the bottle is fitted to be used as a measure. A capful of this powder is thoroughly stirred into the pint of cold "milk mixture ;" the whole is then put into the sauce-pan over a clear but slow fire, and stirred till it boils.
Condensed milk may be tried as a substitute for fresh cows' milk. If it is used, it is the unsweetened brand that should be made ase of. One part of this to 8 or 10 of water represents ordinary cows' milk. Make first, therefore, the quantity, representing a tea-cupful (5 ounces) of cows' milk, by using ounce (1 table spoonful) of the condensed milk, and making it up to 5 ounces with water. With this go on to make "the milk mixture" as noted on p.
565.
Cleanliness and Accuracy in the making of "the milk mixture" are absolutely indispens able, and also punctuality. It is amazing how frequently one sees, in good houses even, the most slap-dash, hap-hazard, untidy, not to say dirty methods followed in preparing the infant's food. Yet the smallest care and method will make the process of the simplest possible kind. The table at which it is made should be clean; a clean towel should be spread ou it. [Is it necessary to say that a baby's napkin is not a clean towel?] Everything needful should be arranged upon it•—the clean, freshly-scalded jug, the jug of newly-drawn cold water, a clean table-spoon to stir the mixture, a clean tea spoon to measure the 'syrup, another for the soda and salt, a clean tea-cup as measure, or a clean glass ounce-measure ; the thoroughly cleansed, outside and in, enamelled sauce-pan; the bicarbonate of soda, not in a paper parcel, but iu a wide-mouthed, wood-topped bottle ; the clean folded towel to cover the jug, and the -rubber band by its side—all should be in place before the preparation is begun.
Punctually every morning, at the same hour, the mixture should be made. Probably the most convenient hour would be 9 or half-past 9, so that the fresh days supply is ready to giye the first feeding of it at 10 a.m. The other hours of feeding would then be 1, 4, 7, and 10 p.m. If the precautions named have been taken, and cleanliness has been observed, the mixture should keep, and there should be enough for feeding the child, say at 3 or 4 in the morning, and again at 7. But the twenty-four hours' supply may be made in two portions, the first at 9 a.m., enough for four feedings, the next at 9 p.m., enough for other three or four, as the case may be.
A great many attempts have been made to produce a food for infants resembling human milk, Liebig's food for infants, Nestle's food, &c. &c. As a rule, however, they are all de ficient in proteid elements ; as a result, although they agree with children, the children are soft, flabby, pale, and deficient in vigour. They have soft, yielding bones, are very open to dis ease, and have no great power of recovery.
In no sort of food is this defect more marked than in such as arrow-root and corn-flour, and to a less but still a marked extent, in sago, tapioca, rice, barley. Yet it is a popular delu sion that arrow-root and corn-flour are good for children, and very nourishing. They are not so. They consist almost entirely of starch, which the digestive apparatus of an infant is not yet prepared to digest. They are illand in charac ter, however, and are not irritating, but are only nourishing in proportion to the quantity of milk with which they are prepared. So far as the arrow-root or corn-flour themselves are concerned, a child fed mainly on them would waste, would be literally starved. Several of such artificial foods are noted on p. 130, Vol. IL For pu rposes of night feeding, food warm ers are employed. For a useful kind see Plate XXXI.