London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Islington 1898

Forty-third annual report on the health and sanitary condition of the Parish of St. Mary, Islington

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164
18981
raising the fine point of the difference between meaning of words
"skimmed" and "separated" is to be deplored, for it has undoubtedly
had the tendency of throwing considerable doubt on the value of
separated milk as a food.

The milk of cows consists of solids and water in about the following proportion:—

Total Solids 12.83 per cent.Proteids3.55 per cent.
Fat3.69
Carbo-hvdrates4.88
Salts0.71
Water87.17
100.00

Now as regards the fat of any food, it is pretty well known that it
is a source of heat, and therefore, to an extent, of energy also, and there
is no occasion to refer further to its effect on the animal economy,
beyond that it is absolutely essential for the support of infant life.
Hence it is found in the milk of all animals, although in varying
proportions.
But the same cannot be said of the Proteids or the Carbo-hydrates,
the very words themselves being unknown to the mass of the people,
and therefore it may be well to explain what they are as well as what
their value is as a food.
Proteids are the most important food stuffs, and are the only
organic food substances of which it can be affirmed with certainty that
they are indispensable. They are always in every animal or vegetable
food, and they all resemble each other in being composed in similar
weight and proportions of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and
sulphur, with occasionally a little phosphorus. They are the main
constituents of the nitrogenous portion of all foods.
It must be recollected that every structure in the body from
which energy is derived is nitrogenous. Thus the nerves, muscles,
glands, cells, the floating cells in the various liquids are all