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The Care of Babies: Line
Or, to make a still cheaper ice box, get a large soap box from your grocer and another box about half as large. Line the smaller box with tin or zinc. This will hold your ice and milk bottles. Now, put a layer at least three inches deep of sawdust in the bottom of the larger box, set the smaller box on this and fill in around the sides with sawdust. Line the cover with newspapers fastened on by means of tacks or cleats and keep the box tightly closed.
Or, if you cannot get ice, milk may be kept fairly cool as follows: Procure an ordinary butter or lard tub or a half barrel cask. Put on the bottom a layer of sawdust three inches or more thick and place on this a large earthenware jar. Surround this with sawdust. Cork the milk bottles to protect the contents from dust, stand them up in the jar and surround them up to the necks of the bottles with the coldest water you can get. Put on the lid of the jar and fit over the jar a cushion stuffed with sawdust or fine hay that will just fill the top of the tub. Keep this in the coolest place that can be found. Change the water at least once in twenty-four hours. The temperature of the milk will remain nearly stationary and about one degree warmer than the water. A Window Box. - Most families discontinue taking ice for the refrigerator during half the year or more. During such times, if milk is allowed to stand in the pantry it quickly becomes warm and unfit for infants' food. Yet the outdoor temperature would keep the milk sweet for some time. A window box may be constructed with sides made of old blinds, slats, or boards perforated with auger holes for ventilation, and provided with a solid bottom and tight slanting roof. Attach this outside the pantry window where it can be reached by simply raising the sash. Line with wire netting to keep out insects, especially flies. Such a box costs next to nothing, and serves to keep not only the baby's milk, but butter, meat and other provisions when the refrigerator is not in use.
Or stand a deep dish or pail of water by an open window away from the sun. Put a narrow board or wire screen across the top and on this stand the milk bottles or jars. Wrap the bottles in a wet cloth and let the end of the cloth extend to the bottom of the water. The cloth will be kept wet by capillary attraction and the water, by evaporation, will cool the milk.
By some such method you must keep the milk and cream cool until used if you desire to safeguard your baby's health.
Care of the Ice Box. -Keep the refrigerator sweet and clean. Personally inspect it at least once a week. See that the outlet for melted ice is kept open and the space under the ice rack is clean. Scald the place where food is kept every week with a strong sal soda solution. A single drop of spoiled milk or small particle of other neglected food will contaminate a refrigerator in a few days.
Care of Milk Bottles. - As soon as a milk bottle is empty, rinse it in clear lukewarm or cold water until it looks clean and set it bottom side up to drain. Do not use it for any other purpose than holding milk.
Never return filthy bottles. Rinse, wash and scald all utensils with which milk comes in contact every time they are used. Do not wash them in dish water or wipe with an ordinary dish towel. This will only serve to smear them with an invisible coating of grease. Boil them in clean water containing a little borax or washing soda and set them away unwiped. If a case of typhoid, scarlet fever or diphtheria breaks out in a family do not return any milk bottles to the milkman except with the knowledge of the attending physician and under conditions prescribed by him. Never accept milk from any family, dairyman or dealer when you know, or suspect, that there are contagious diseases in his family, or that they have recently been exposed to such contagion. The above suggestions apply to cream as well as to milk.