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61
From these figures it will be seen that :—
53 or 17.6 per cent, were breast fed.
109 or 36.2 per cent, were fed wholly or partly on
artificial milks.
139 or 46.1 per cent, were fed wholly or partly on
cows' milk.
That is to say that 82 per cent, of the children under one year
of age dying of epidemic diarrhœa in Finsbury during 1903 and
1904 were fed on artificial or cows' milk, or in other words, upon
milk which might be, and in fact is, liable to great contamination.
The evidence which is obtainable for 1904 is therefore in no way
exceptional, and only bears out the findings of 1903 and 1902.
Indeed, the larger the number of deaths investigated in regard to
this point of infant feeding, the more is the case against it
strengthened. The remedy is to feed infants on human milk, or, if
that be impracticable, then on clean pure cow's milk, suitably
modified for infant consumption. If both of these are impossible,
then recourse must lie had to sterilised milk.*

* See also appendix to this Section, p. 82, for some notes by Dr. Sandilands on
Infant Feeding.