Special Recipes, Directions, And Appliances For The Sick-Room. Part 4

The use of condensed milk necessarily leads to a dilemma. Either the dilution is made moderately, so that the proportion of casein is not less than 3 per cent, as in human milk (in that case, the milk is intensely sweet, and certainly indigestible and heavy, and quite unfit for infants' diet); or the dilution is carried to such an extent that the amount of solids in the diluted milk corresponds with that in normal human milk; but then the nitrogenous matter, the fat and the phosphates, are so much reduced, that their amounts are far smaller than are requisite for proper and perfect nutrition.

Condensed milk, in fine, may be useful and excellent for a great variety of purposes, and in cases where fresh milk is not obtainable; but it should not be regarded, as it is by Mr. G. Worthington, and unfortunately by a great part of the ignorant public, as 'as close a representation of human milk as can possibly be obtained.'

24. Artificial Human Milk. - Professor Frankland, F.R.S., thus writes: - "The rearing of infants who cannot be supplied with their natural food is notoriously difficult and uncertain, owing chiefly to the great difference in the chemical composition of human milk and cow's milk. The latter is much richer in casein, and poorer in milk sugar than the former, whilst asses' milk, which is sometimes used for feeding infants, is too poor in casein and butter, although the proportion of sugar is nearly the same as in human milk. The relations of the three kinds of milk to each other are clearly seen from the following analytical numbers, which express the percentage amounts of the different constituents -

Artificial human milk, exactly corresponding to the foregoing analysis, is prepared daily by the Aylesbury Dairy Company. (See Diet and Regimen of Children, Chap. IV.)

25. Koumiss, as now sent out by the Aylesbury Dairy Company, instead of being, as heretofore in England, a disagreeable drink, only tolerated in cases of extremity, is now for the first time brought before the English public in a palatable form and at a reasonable price, and is being prepared in the Company's laboratory, by experienced chemists from the highest information obtained from Russia, where it has so long been used and valued. (See 2nd edit, of the Author's work "On Loss of Weight," etc., p. 241.)

Koumiss, when properly prepared, is a highly refreshing effervescent preparation of milk, obtained by a natural process of fermentation, in which the albumen and casein are partially digested by a natural process, while its abundance of free carbonic acid makes it sedative to the most irritable stomach, so that it has succeeded in numerous cases recorded by medical practitioners, where stimulants, beef-tea, and rectal enemata, aided by the most varied pharmacopceial treatment had alike failed. Its chief qualities are: -

a. Its agreeable, refreshing, and highly digestible character.

b. Its attested and rare powers of nutrition in the most desperate cases of emaciation, chronic vomiting, dyspepsia, gastric pain and irritability, and of debility following acute, or accompanying chronic, diseases.

c. The avidity and pleasure with which it is drunk by children, women and men in health and disease, and its remarkable success in allaying vomiting and gastralgia, and in restoring the nutrition

26. Simple Combinations of Alimentary Principles in nearly exact normal proportions. (See "Essentials of a Normal Diet," Chapter III (What Do You Need For A Normal Diet).)

a. Flour 4 oz., sugar 1 1/4 oz., suet 3/4 oz., milk 3/4 pint Imperial, and one egg. - This will make a good pudding, or it may be given in any other form desired; with the addition of a little cress, salt, and water, it forms a complete diet, upon a sufficient quantity of which a person can live healthfully for an indefinite length of time without any other food.

b. The same may be said of the following. - Rice, 3 oz., sugar 1 oz., butter 1/2 oz., milk 3/4 pint (Imperial), two eggs, and water as much as is sufficient to boil the rice in.

c. Suet 1/4 lb., flour 1 lb., water 13 oz. These quantities when boiled yield 2 lbs of pudding.

27. The recipes for the following useful forms of food may be found in Warne's and most other cookery books:

Purée of Carrots, of Potatoes, of Turnips, of Celery, of Peas: Purée de Volaille: Souffles of Fowl: Haricot Beans: Croquettes of Fowl and Rice: Mouse de Volaille (fowl pounded in a mortar).

28. Port Wine Jelly. Take of port wine 1 pint, isinglass 1 oz., sugar 1 oz.; put the isinglass and sugar into 1/4 pint of water, warm till all is dissolved, then add the wine, strain through muslin and set to jelly. (An excellent way of giving port wine.)

Another form, firm enough to carry in the pocket, or put under the pillow at night, cut up in cubes, may be made as follows:

Take isinglass and gum Arabic of each an ounce, dissolve in a pint of port wine over a slow fire; sweeten with loaf sugar to the taste, and after straining through a fine sieve, grate in a small nutmeg. Take about a cubic inch when feeling weak or exhausted.

29. Sponge Cake and Brandy. Pour a dessertspoonful of pale brandy upon a sponge cake, then drop it into half a breakfastcupful of boiling milk, and eat with a spoon as soon as cool enough.

30. Nutritive Enemata. When nutriment is given in enemata the quantity should not exceed from 2 to 4 oz., and the temperature should be about 80°.

The bowel should be first washed out with half a pint of warm water. An elastic bottle holding the required quantity is better for nutritive enemata than the ordinary enema syringe. They should be given while the patient is lying on the back with the hips raised on a pillow.

The following pancreatised enema constitutes a most important means of preserving life when food cannot be given by the stomach: -

Take of cooked beef or mutton finely grated 3 oz.;

Arrowroot (boiled) 1/2 oz.