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THE DIET OF THE WEANLING.
873 and other professions suffer; may be traceable to dietetic indiscretions in early youth. We know well that it is only the uninformed who are positive and that wheresoever a party of experts is gathered together there also is dissension. But we hope that this Society in the future may be in a position, as the result of its pooled experience, to tell us with some measure of authority what may be considered a dietetic indiscretion in an infant.
infections, into any discoverable differences in the constitutions and economics of the two sets of animals, their phagocytic and antibody mechanics, and his results will
be awaited with much interest. In the second place, the observations emphasise the care and circumspection with which experiments must be interpreted by forcing on our notice a factor which has hardly been suspected before. A race of guinea-pigs which have the audacity to have no end-piece to their complement has lately been revealed, and it is evident that if quantitative inoculation experiments are to reach their highest accuracy they must be made on a genetically homogeneous population. Evident, too, that along these lines one may look for reconciliation between divergent sets of observations. Perhaps in future our experimental animals will have to be as guaranteed as our dyes and chemicals.
THE
our own
"THE FIGHT AGAINST DISEASE."
I
DIET OF THE WEANLING.
THE neglect of the general practitioner to make himself familiar with the principles of feeding advocated at infant welfare centres has been freely criticised certain circles. But are there as yet any well-recognised principles, excepting the desirability of breast feeding till the ninth month, on which there is general agreement ? And if there are not, is not the general practitioner justified in depending upon his own experience, rather than upon pronouncements which themselves are in question? The report of a meeting of the Society of Medical Officers of Maternity and Infant Welfare Centres in our present issue shows that there is little unanimity on the subject of the proper feeding of infants between 9 months and 5 years of The assumption that the bulk of the food age. supplied to babies should be cow’s milk, of which large quantities should be consumed, appears on the evidence submitted to be founded on slender enough basis, though milk certainly seems a useful and palatable vehicle for fats and for water. The mother familiar to us all, who gives her baby just " a snack of what we eats ourselves," used to be held up to execration, and, indeed, in most middle-class circles would still be accounted blameworthy. But, according to one expert, the mother who, on being asked why she gave her infant a chop, said that it was because " he won’t eat pork," was selecting the most suitable food by the most rational experimental method-that of trial and error. To select apparently healthy children, to ascertain as a matter ’of interest what they habitually eat and recommend those in charge to carry on, may be a reasonable method, but it does not lead us much further. Dr. Harold Waller admits that sick and weakly children cannot be brought back to health by the varied diet that may be suitable to maintain the robust child in
inI,
development, and the question remains the healthy child flourishes in spite or because of its food. The diet recommended by Dr. J. Sim Wallace as prophylactic against carious teeth appears to have been welcomed by many medical officers, possibly because to follow definite rules is always some satisfaction when facing a difficult problem. But the view that good teeth depend on general conditions, on resistance to infection, and on proper development of the mouth and jaw promoted by nasal breathing, appears more convincing to us than does the mechanical cleansing theory. In the nursery, manners and habits other than dietetic are formed. and a child who is allowed to chew but not to swallow crusts, or one who is encouraged to discard and eject to bite and tear and worry food will have muel to unlearn if he or she is ever to be a pleasani table companion. Moreover, those who focus thei] attention on dental caries appear to think only in term; of masticatory power, whereas good digestive habit: have also to be acquired. The question of bulk if important in connexion with constipation, and the strength of the digestive juices III the young chil< remains to be ascertained and considered. The chronic epigastric malaise, for which no organic basis can b found, from which so many overworked members o
vigorous
whether
UNDER this broad title appears the first number of a is to replace the reports hitherto issued the Research Defence Society to its It will be published six times a year by members. Macmillans, will cost only 6d., and will be placed on the tables of the chief public libraries. The design of the Society appears to be the provision of accredited abstracts and reviews of recent research work in a form intelligible to the lay public, a function corresponding to that subserved by the Medical Since nearly Research Council to the profession. all modern developments in medicine have an experimental basis, the alteration will involve but little change in the character of the publications issued by the society, which will now, however, be made At available to a much larger circle of readers. present the public greedily consumes whatever dietsometimes unnecessarily meagre, too often indigestible and excessively spiced-it is offered on medical subjects ; a periodical giving reliable and simple accounts of recent advances should have success, though it cannot be sure of it. Though the days of sharp fighting for the rights of experimental work are practically over, medical research has other enemies besides the fanatics who would shackle it by force, and in the times of national penury ahead may have to be protected from starvation. The first number of the new journal reviews recent work on protection against tuberculosis and on Malta fever, and comments on the hospital stalls at the Efficiency Exhibition, outlining a constructive scheme for a permanent health exhibition under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. Annotated extracts from lectures recently delivered by Sir Charters Symondsand Professor F. Hobday2 show the beneficial potentialities of the comparative study of medicine and surgery not only for man but for animals. In the short obituary notices of Lord Moulton and Sir Felix Semon, which complete the number, the following words, spoken by Lord Moulton in 1907, show that the new journal is a natural development of the policy which has been maintained by the Society since its inception :" The advance of science takes the workers in science more and more beyond the ken of the ordinary public, and their work grows to be a little understood and much misunderstood ; and I have felt that the need would come for interpreters between those who are carrying on scientific
journal which quarterly by
research and the public in order to explain and justify their work." The need for interpreters is no less great to-day.
UNDER the auspices of the Institute of Pathology and Research at St. Mary’s Hospital a course of lectures on Pathological Research in its Relation to Medicine will be given in the lecture-room of the Bacteriological Department in the coming session at 4.30 P.M. un Thursdays. Among those taking part in the course are Sir James Mackenzie, F.R.S., Professor W. Bulloch, F.R.S., Professor Georges Dreyer, F.R.S., Dr. Leonard Hill, F.R.S., Dr. H. H. Dale, F.R.S., and Dr. J. A. Murray. The principal of the institute, Sir Almroth Wright, F.R.S., will give the introductory lecture on April 28th, taking as his subject Acidosis and Acid2emia, with Special Reference to Scurvy and Shock. The lectures will be open to all members of the profession and to students. 18 THE LANCET, Feb. 19th, 1921, p. 359. 2
Ibid., April 2nd, 1921, p. 726.
infections, into any discoverable differences in the constitutions and economics of the two sets of animals, their phagocytic and antibody mechanics, and his results will
be awaited with much interest. In the second place, the observations emphasise the care and circumspection with which experiments must be interpreted by forcing on our notice a factor which has hardly been suspected before. A race of guinea-pigs which have the audacity to have no end-piece to their complement has lately been revealed, and it is evident that if quantitative inoculation experiments are to reach their highest accuracy they must be made on a genetically homogeneous population. Evident, too, that along these lines one may look for reconciliation between divergent sets of observations. Perhaps in future our experimental animals will have to be as guaranteed as our dyes and chemicals.
THE
our own
"THE FIGHT AGAINST DISEASE."
I
DIET OF THE WEANLING.
THE neglect of the general practitioner to make himself familiar with the principles of feeding advocated at infant welfare centres has been freely criticised certain circles. But are there as yet any well-recognised principles, excepting the desirability of breast feeding till the ninth month, on which there is general agreement ? And if there are not, is not the general practitioner justified in depending upon his own experience, rather than upon pronouncements which themselves are in question? The report of a meeting of the Society of Medical Officers of Maternity and Infant Welfare Centres in our present issue shows that there is little unanimity on the subject of the proper feeding of infants between 9 months and 5 years of The assumption that the bulk of the food age. supplied to babies should be cow’s milk, of which large quantities should be consumed, appears on the evidence submitted to be founded on slender enough basis, though milk certainly seems a useful and palatable vehicle for fats and for water. The mother familiar to us all, who gives her baby just " a snack of what we eats ourselves," used to be held up to execration, and, indeed, in most middle-class circles would still be accounted blameworthy. But, according to one expert, the mother who, on being asked why she gave her infant a chop, said that it was because " he won’t eat pork," was selecting the most suitable food by the most rational experimental method-that of trial and error. To select apparently healthy children, to ascertain as a matter ’of interest what they habitually eat and recommend those in charge to carry on, may be a reasonable method, but it does not lead us much further. Dr. Harold Waller admits that sick and weakly children cannot be brought back to health by the varied diet that may be suitable to maintain the robust child in
inI,
development, and the question remains the healthy child flourishes in spite or because of its food. The diet recommended by Dr. J. Sim Wallace as prophylactic against carious teeth appears to have been welcomed by many medical officers, possibly because to follow definite rules is always some satisfaction when facing a difficult problem. But the view that good teeth depend on general conditions, on resistance to infection, and on proper development of the mouth and jaw promoted by nasal breathing, appears more convincing to us than does the mechanical cleansing theory. In the nursery, manners and habits other than dietetic are formed. and a child who is allowed to chew but not to swallow crusts, or one who is encouraged to discard and eject to bite and tear and worry food will have muel to unlearn if he or she is ever to be a pleasani table companion. Moreover, those who focus thei] attention on dental caries appear to think only in term; of masticatory power, whereas good digestive habit: have also to be acquired. The question of bulk if important in connexion with constipation, and the strength of the digestive juices III the young chil< remains to be ascertained and considered. The chronic epigastric malaise, for which no organic basis can b found, from which so many overworked members o
vigorous
whether
UNDER this broad title appears the first number of a is to replace the reports hitherto issued the Research Defence Society to its It will be published six times a year by members. Macmillans, will cost only 6d., and will be placed on the tables of the chief public libraries. The design of the Society appears to be the provision of accredited abstracts and reviews of recent research work in a form intelligible to the lay public, a function corresponding to that subserved by the Medical Since nearly Research Council to the profession. all modern developments in medicine have an experimental basis, the alteration will involve but little change in the character of the publications issued by the society, which will now, however, be made At available to a much larger circle of readers. present the public greedily consumes whatever dietsometimes unnecessarily meagre, too often indigestible and excessively spiced-it is offered on medical subjects ; a periodical giving reliable and simple accounts of recent advances should have success, though it cannot be sure of it. Though the days of sharp fighting for the rights of experimental work are practically over, medical research has other enemies besides the fanatics who would shackle it by force, and in the times of national penury ahead may have to be protected from starvation. The first number of the new journal reviews recent work on protection against tuberculosis and on Malta fever, and comments on the hospital stalls at the Efficiency Exhibition, outlining a constructive scheme for a permanent health exhibition under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. Annotated extracts from lectures recently delivered by Sir Charters Symondsand Professor F. Hobday2 show the beneficial potentialities of the comparative study of medicine and surgery not only for man but for animals. In the short obituary notices of Lord Moulton and Sir Felix Semon, which complete the number, the following words, spoken by Lord Moulton in 1907, show that the new journal is a natural development of the policy which has been maintained by the Society since its inception :" The advance of science takes the workers in science more and more beyond the ken of the ordinary public, and their work grows to be a little understood and much misunderstood ; and I have felt that the need would come for interpreters between those who are carrying on scientific
journal which quarterly by
research and the public in order to explain and justify their work." The need for interpreters is no less great to-day.
UNDER the auspices of the Institute of Pathology and Research at St. Mary’s Hospital a course of lectures on Pathological Research in its Relation to Medicine will be given in the lecture-room of the Bacteriological Department in the coming session at 4.30 P.M. un Thursdays. Among those taking part in the course are Sir James Mackenzie, F.R.S., Professor W. Bulloch, F.R.S., Professor Georges Dreyer, F.R.S., Dr. Leonard Hill, F.R.S., Dr. H. H. Dale, F.R.S., and Dr. J. A. Murray. The principal of the institute, Sir Almroth Wright, F.R.S., will give the introductory lecture on April 28th, taking as his subject Acidosis and Acid2emia, with Special Reference to Scurvy and Shock. The lectures will be open to all members of the profession and to students. 18 THE LANCET, Feb. 19th, 1921, p. 359. 2
Ibid., April 2nd, 1921, p. 726.