Milk drinking

Milk drinking follows the same law. As a beverage we have previously pointed out the need of sterilizing milk for babies and children. The danger of contracting typhoid and consumption from using milk drawn from cows that are often in apparent health is emphasized by the statements made by the Health Boards of various states and cities. Milk is sterilized by bottling, corking with cotton, and after placing the bottles in a kettle having a false bottom, filling the vessel with cold water, and allowing it to come to a boil. At the end of a half hour, the bottles may be removed and closely corked. Whatever unwholesome bacteria the milk might have contained are killed by the heat.

Even then, milk must be sipped. Taken at one draught it is coagulated by the gastric juice the moment it reaches the stomach. There it remains in one large lump, upon which that digestive fluid cannot act. There results disturbance or pain, and the person supposes the milk disagrees with him or her. The fact is that the same amount of milk, slowly sipped, would present to the gastric juice small, separate masses of coagulum that are readily acted upon. Hence all depends upon the manner in which fluids are imbibed.

It must be borne in mind, however, that milk should never be taken at the same meal with meat or with acid fruits. Think of the mass of complicated stuff taken at one meal by the careless eater who declares that he “can digest anything,” and wonder not when he does break down in health and becomes an invalid. That we can eat anything that is not poisonous if taken in the right way, is true. Still, unhappy mixtures, too many kinds of food at one meal, and such things as pickles and milk or ice cream or edibles that are violently antagonistic, excesses, and combinations that require great difference of time needed to complete digestion, all these are unreasonable, exhausting, and intemperate. Temperance means something more than abstinence from alcohol. It is moderation in all foods and drinks.