so insignificant in
itself as not to justify serious consideration, may mean the difference
between normal healthfulness and constant ill health. A food that is too
strong for a child's digestive ability, and which causes vomiting,
colic, and diarrhea, may be rendered exactly right by the slightest
modification one of its constituents. To effect such a change quickly
and successfully, one must be trained to interpret the symptoms
correctly and to know how to make the change in the modification of the
milk. Mothers cannot be expected to possess this degree of skill: they
should therefore refrain from experimenting, because an experiment on a
baby is not only dangerous, but ethically it is criminal. Call the
family physician; put the burden on his shoulder.

It is this element of uncertainty in our ability to effect a standard
modification of milk that has afforded manufacturers the rich
opportunity of putting on the market various baby foods for which much
is claimed. These foods are really substitutes for the inefficiency of
the average mother. There is no real justification for their use. If all
mothers were clean, faithful, and efficient, there is no reason why each
one could not be taught to modify cow's milk to suit her child, just as
satisfactorily, or more so, than a manufacturer who never saw her child.
The manufacturers, however, do the work, and the naturally ignorant or
lazy and inefficient mother, is willing to pay for the extra cost of
labor, to save herself the trouble on the one hand, and to subject her
child to a series of experiments in order to discover the manufactured
food that is particularly adapted to her particular baby on the other
hand. We believe that most mothers have never considered the question
from this standpoint; that most mothers adopt this method of artificial
feeding at the direct suggestion of their family physician, and are not,
therefore, responsible. These foods do not contain the nutritional
elements necessary to healthy growth; or as they exist in normal breast
milk; or as they can be approximated in ordinary milk modification at
home. Proprietary foods are of decidedly poor value in infant nutrition,
and should not be used. They have a value, however, in certain diseased
conditions, but within a very small range. As a food for a healthy
growing infant, they should not be used, and when the average physician
appreciates this fact, and so instructs the mothers of the country, it