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85
months. The inevitable result to the child is a lowered vitality,
and a liability to death from any disease to which it may fall a victim.
If diarrhœa is excluded, the evil influence of artificial feeding,
though less marked, is still apparent among other causes of death,
whence it may be inferred that the debility of a child deprived of
its mother's milk is a very real thing, and must be taken as a factor
of some importance in the mortality from diarrhoea.
It appears from the table that the mortality from diarrhoea
amongst infants fed on condensed milk is nearly three times the
average mortality in the first six months, whilst the mortality
amongst those fed on cows' milk is less than twice the average.
Between the sixth and ninth months, condensed milk still gives
a higher mortality, but the discrepancy is less marked. The
difference in the two mortalities admits of both the following
explanations, one that fermentative changes in the condensed milk
are more deadly than similar changes in cows' milk, and the other
that children fed on condensed milk are virtually starved and
consequently ready victims to fatal diarrhoea. There would seem
to be little doubt that the poor of Finsbury in the greater number
of cases feed their babies on condensed milk from motives of
economy and of necessity. The want of money which leads them
to substitute condensed milk for cows' milk, only too often compels
them to give even the condensed milk in quantities which are
altogether insufficient. The result of such feeding is an enfeebled
constitution, which would seem to predispose to fatal diarrhœa
almost as certainly as fermentative changes in the milk initiate the
attack.
Further evidence of the unfavourable influence of condensed
milk is shown by the deaths from "other causes." Between the
third and ninth months the deaths from other causes in those fed
on condensed milk is twice the average number, whilst the deaths
in those fed on cows' milk are, in the first age period, equal to the
average, in the second period, only slightly above, and in the third
age period actually below. The enfeebled constitution resulting
from the use of condensed milk is the direct cause of this high