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3. Nursing mothers—using 1,364 pint bottles of milk mixture
(170J gallons);
4. Expectant mothers—using 160 pint bottles of milk mixture
(20 gallons).
5. Children over 2 years of age—using 2,745 pint bottles of
milk mixture (3431/8 gallons).
A total of 8,633 gallons of milk and 454i pints of cream w jre
used during 1924, distributed in 144,484 bottles.
Attached to the Milk Depot is an Infants Consultations Centre,
where consultations for mothers, infants and children (under 5 years
of age) are held, with the Medical Officer of Health and one of the
Council's Official Health Visitors in attendance. The babies are
weighed and the weights and other details tabulated in the Register,
and those mothers and infants and children (under 5 years of age)
who require medical advice are examined by the Medical Officer of
Health, visiting at the homes being carried out by a Health Visitor,
as required. The Manageress also attends daily (Sundays excepted)
between the hours of 12 (noon) and 2 p.m. at the DepGt for the
purpose of distributing the milk and of also consulting with mothers
and others in regard to infant and child feeding and management.
The Medical Officer of Health can also be seen personally by mothers
by appointment at the Town Hall, or communicated with by telephone,
the Town Hall and the Milk Depot being in telephonic communication.
The most conclusive proof of the value of a Milk Depot, in so far
as the infants and children fed are concerned, is to be found in the
medical hislories of individual cases, which show again and again, in
the case of the DepOt, that those infants and children who appear to
be seriously ill and wasting, if not moribund, as the result of improper
or irregular feeding, at the time of commencing the milk, actually
recover and become strong and healthy. Practically no medicines are
used, reliance being placed upon what is Known as percentage feeding,
the giving of modified (humanised) cow's milk, of which the different
composition varies according to the age and condition of the infant or
child being fed. The percentages of protein, fat, carbohydrate and
mineral matter are strictly in accordance (averages) with those to be
found in mother's milk for the same age periods of the various infants
fed, except in such cases as require one or other of the ingredients to
be modified.
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