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Milk (THERE are ruminant human)

The THERE are ruminant, human, asinine, and equine varieties of Milk, all available for our sustenance, and curative uses. essential difference between human milk, and that of ruminant animals (cow, goat, and sheep) lies in the character of their casein, or curd, and its proportions to those of the other albumins. The milks of all mammals consist of water, holding, in virtual or actual solution, salts, sugar, casein, and other albumins, with minute globules of fat uniformly suspended in the liquid, but tending to come to the top by reason of their lower specific gravity. Milk shares with oysters the advantage of containing within itself representatives of all three nutritive main divisions of food, the proteids, the carbohydrates, and the fats. But because milk is the pattern natural food of the human species, and of mammals, during the whole period of their most rapid young growth, it must not therefore be taken as a model diet for adults. This is evident from the fact that grass is the superlative food for the cow, by instinct, and milk that of the calf. Human milk is always alkaline, cows' milk being either alkaline or acid, whilst that of carnivorous animals is acid. Cow's milk contains a little carbonate of sodium, and if a small quantity of acid be added thereto (for instance lemon juice or vinegar), some carbonic acid gas is given off, the sugar of milk being converted into lactic acid, so that then the milk does not go sour.

Milk sugar is chemically lactose. Sydney Smith writing (1820) to Mrs. Meynell about the nurture of her infant son, said, "The usual establishment for an eldest landed baby is two wet nurses, two dry ditto, two aunts, two physicians, two apothecaries, three female friends of the family, unmarried, advanced in life; and often in the nursery one clergyman, six flatterers, and a grandpapa. Less than this would not be decent." During the growing time of youth, the preponderance of nitrogenous matters present in milk makes it a most useful food; but in adult life this is not desirable. Yet, among Modern Methuselahs (Bailey), more than one centenarian is told about, who by eating but little substantial food, and only drinking milk, reached the great age of one hundred and thirty-eight years, whilst no hearty meat-eater has got beyond one hundred and three years. The casein, or curd of these milks, is an albumin, but distinguished from other albumins by becoming coagulated when swallowed, through the action on it of the gastric juice, but not by heat when cooked, as the albumin (or white) of egg does. And the casein of one animal differs from that of another. This is the chief proteid, or nitrogenous constituent of milk, not coagulating spontaneously, as the fibrin, or albumin, of blood does, but by the action of acids, and of rennet. The casein of milk yields no uric acid, and does not contain any nuclein, which fact renders it specially of service for goutily disposed persons as a food; and it yields no carbohydrate when split up, which may render it of particular value in those severe cases of diabetes in which sugar is formed out of proteid foods. Curdling of milk depends on the production of lactic acid in the milk, which turns the curd, or casein, out of its partnership with the lime salts; then the casein, not being soluble, falls down as a flocculent precipitate, or clot. Lactic acid is formed in sour milk, this being, when concentrated by the chemist, a syrupy, intensely sour liquid, comprising well-defined salts. (It is produced likewise in the fermentation of several vegetable juices, and during the putrescence of some animal matters). Nevertheless, milk is the most powerful preventive of acidity, or neutralizer of acid, among all foods, chiefly by its citrate of lime, the basis of which is identical with that of lemon-juice; for a good cow yields practically as much citric acid in a day, as would be contained in two or three lemons. This citrate of lime, as occurring in new unboiled milk, is altogether devoid of any sour taste. The solid particles sometimes met with in Condensed Milk consist chiefly of this citrate of lime. The great majority of condensed milks are sweetened by the addition of cane sugar (indigestible by an infant) in considerable quantity, so as to preserve them unchanged after the cans have been opened. Children fed on condensed milk get their teeth late, and are likely to be rickety; they become plump, but paddy; large, but not strong, lacking the power of endurance, and of resistance to disease. The condensed milk, when used for emergencies, or in travelling, should always be diluted with at least ten times its bulk of water. In rickets, any excess of milk is to be avoided in the child's food, or aught else of the animal sort which causes stinking stools. The added cane-sugar prevents condensed milk from approaching the standard of human milk.

When milk enters the stomach, it sets into a solid clot, owing to the action on it, not at first of gastric juice, but of rennin; whilst the alkaline salts of the milk serve for a short time to partly neutralize the strong acid of the gastric juice, thus giving the rennin time to act, just as in making a junket with calf's rennet by the cook. Boiled milk clots more slowly outside the body than raw milk does, and with a less dense clot; but this is not the case within the stomach, as is often supposed by mistake, because the gastric juice redissolves the lime salts of the boiled milk, which then clots quite as firmly as does unboiled milk within the stomach. The change which takes place when milk turns sour by keeping, or in thundery weather, is caused by the growth in it of micro-organisms, which can be killed by heat (short of boiling). These micro-organisms are most active in milk at blood-heat, but scarcely at all in milk at 60° Fahr., and quite inactive at the freezing point. After being boiled, milk is free for a time from micro-organisms, but it will not remain so unless straightway sealed hermetically from the air, so as to prevent the entrance of fresh germs, which would shortly become very active therein.

When milk is allowed to remain exposed to the air in a cool place, the "bonny clobber," or sour milk, is produced in this wise. Some clot or cream collects on the top, and a mycelium, or membrane of delicate fungi, also forms on the uppermost surface of the milk, which now acquires an acidulous taste, and is sometimes a little effervescent, whilst curdling in the same way as it would by rennet; though this present curdling is caused by lactic acid, developed from the sugar of milk by a living low fungus and ferment termed the "bacillus of sour milk." Although generally rejected, yet sour milk is an agreeable, nutritious fluid, easily digested. It should be well stirred before use, and perhaps have some cream added; the taste can be heightened by white sugar and powdered cinnamon, with dice of bread, or bread crumb, to give it body. Lactic acid, when neutralized with an alkali, such as carbonate of soda, makes a useful hypnotic for sleepless patients with nervous indigestion. To a tumblerful of curds, and whey, add a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda in powder, or enough to neutralize the acid. Sweeten to the taste, and add a grating of nutmeg, if liked. This is best when taken hot at bedtime. It is likewise helpful against the sleeplessness of Bright's disease (of the kidneys), or albuminuria. Again, a tumblerful of new milk with a tablespoonful of sound old rum mixed in it, and sweetening the draught if wished, will often answer the sustaining purpose of cod-liver oil as an early morning dose, whilst far more palatable and stomachic. Still nicer food is the delicate sweetmeat which is called "junket," (being actually a cream cheese which bears this name, because brought in or served on rushes, giunca, a rush), as curds mixed with cream, sweetened, and spiced, exquisite food for the little people. Thus Milton relates in his beautiful L'Allegro:- "With stories told of many a feat How faery Mab the junkets eat."

A mixture of milk and eggs, especially if sugar is added, inevitably curdles if heated to a high temperature, when the clear liquid which escapes is whey, and not merely water. This liquid may be given as a nutritious and safe drink in typhoid fever, as well as milk diluted with barley water, or butter milk, or the eau albumineuse (unboiled white of egg mixed with cold water). During convalescence the best beverage is toast-water. In new milk, by churning, the oil globules which have already risen to the surface through standing (and which consist mainly of fat, mixed with some curd, and retaining some whey) unite to form BUTTER; whilst the liquid residue is butter-milk, which is essentially a solution of milk sugar, with the mineral salts, principally phosphates, retained therein, also some wandering butter elements. "Those persons," says Professor Koch admonitorily, "who are nervous lest the milk they drink should contain elements of typhoid fever, or other mischief, should remember that these bacilli may just as probably lurk in the butter, (which cannot be boiled as a preventive)." Freshly made dairy butter, uncooked, may be eaten freely against chronic constipation, especially by persons in years, and by thin persons of active habits. The chief point in which butter-milk differs from new milk is thus shown to be its poverty of fat, whilst otherwise it is nutritious, digestible, and refreshing, though to some patients the taste is disagreeable. Butter-milk is used largely in Holland for the healthy, as well as for weakly invalids. It differs totally from human milk, yet frequently proves curative to infants when this latter fails. As obtained from the dairy, it should be a sour fluid full of finely suspended flocculent curd. It must be boiled at once; but to prevent wholesale curdling, a level tablespoonful of ground rice, or flour, to each thirty-five ounces, should be previously mixed with it. The boiling should be done over a slow fire, in an emamelled pot, whilst constantly stirring it until it has boiled up two or three times; also two or three tablespoonfuls of sugar should be added to each litre (thirty-five ounces), using cane, or beet sugar for the purpose, but not milk sugar. Metal spoons are not to be employed in the process, else the lactic acid will act on them chemically. When prepared after this manner, the butter-milk food, for infants, has a yellowish colour, and a sourish taste, and it is not more curdled than it was before being boiled. In cases of slight diarrhea, the motions change thereby immediately; they become less in amount, consistent, and homogeneous; from being sour, their reaction becomes alkaline. The lactic acid, though present only in quite small quantity, produces an anti-fermentive action, which is of definite use. Moreover, ammonia is generated by the bacillus of butter-milk, and is helpful. For such curative objects a reliable butter-milk can be made at home, the necessary small outlay for a hand-churn being then incurred. New milk must be left to ripen for twentyfour hours before it is churned, a little sour milk being previously added, so as to turn it. But it will not answer to make use of sweet butter-milk, which does not contain any suspended curd. Infants under four weeks of age will need some cream in addition to the butter-milk. Soured milk will prevent or arrest noxious fermentative changes of the food when reaching the large bowels. Lactic acid bacteria, which become present in considerable numbers, are hostile to the growth of the putrefactive bacteria.

For making sour milk soup: half a pint of sour milk is mixed with a small dessertspoonful of fine flour, which must be whipped into it; thin with cold water, and add half a pint of scalding water, boiling the while, and stirring well all the time. If the soup becomes too thick, add hot water in order to thin it. Before dishing up, boil a little powdered or bruised caraway seeds. Add small squares of toast neatly to the soup, and pour the e decoction over it. When stomach disorder is present, the milk should be skimmed. .

Dr. King Chambers has reminded us that, as to taking new milk for sedative effects, "our senses tell us of a peculiar aroma given off by such new milk, though this quickly exhales, whilst appearances seem to warrant the conclusion that the said aroma contributes to soothe the sensitive and wakeful nervous system, also assisting digestion." Again, the value of milk-sugar as a means of supplementing the carbohydrates of the diet must not be forgotten. If half an ounce of this sugar of milk be dissolved in five or six ounces of milk, the nutritive value thereof is materially increased. Likewise, a steady daily use of this milk sugar will frequently prevent constipation, and will obviate chronic rheumatism. On a milk diet the risk of intestinal decomposition within the body, as from animal food prolonged in its transit, is reduced to a minimum. It has been proved experimentally that milk when taken as food putrefies only with considerable difficulty, whereas meat decomposes very rapidly. Whilst standing also as new milk, this product is stable, because of its microbes, which cause it to presently turn sour with the formation of lactic acid, which is hostile to putrefaction. But if soda, as an alkali, be added to milk, then in spite of the said microbes, putrefaction takes place rapidly. These facts explain how it is that lactic acid will stop the diarrhea due to corrupt matters within the bowels; likewise they make intelligible the medicinal value of fermented milk. Govighi, an Italian physician, drank daily a litre and a half of milk subjected to the lactic acid, and alcoholic fermentations (kephir), finding that within a few days the products of intestinal putrefaction disappeared altogether from his urine. For such a reason soured milk is to be much commended.. Sir Thomas Browne, in Religio Medici (1635), remarks, "Some think there were few consumptions in the Old World, when men lived much upon milk; and that the ancient inhabitants of this island were less troubled with coughs when they went naked, and slept in caves and woods, than men now in chambers and feather beds. Plato will tell us that there was no such disease as catarrh in Homer's time, and that it was but new in Greece in his age. Polydore Virgil delivereth that pleurisies were rare in England, who lived but in the days of Henry the Eighth." Now-a-days, animals treated by electricity -the high frequency current-when suffering from consumption of the lungs, have been proved to live twice as long as others in a like plight, but not treated thus.

For diabetic patients Devonshire cream is specially valuable. It contains only about half as much sugar of milk as ordinary cream; therefore it is peculiarly well suited to be a source of fat in the dietary of diabetics. One and a half pints of cream do not contain more fat than one pound of butter. Junket, on the contrary, contains a considerable quantity of milk sugar, which, though not fermentable by yeast, like cane sugar, is problematical for such cases. But some physicians allow sugar of milk to diabetic patients without apprehension of harm therefrom, maintaining that during digestion of the milk, its sugar of milk is converted entirely into lactic acid; in fact, it undergoes in the stomach precisely the same change that it does when treated with casein as a ferment in the dairy. "We do not act wisely in enforcing on the diabetic sufferer a diet which is really intolerable to him, or her. The object to be gained is to conciliate the stomach, appetite, and fancy, into taking the greatest possible amount of animal food, and of oleaginous matters; in fact, to assimilate the patient as far as possible to the Esquimaux with their Polar diet, or to Pampas Indians, who have nothing but beef and water, water and beef, from the cradle to the grave. And if the said patient eats the heartier for having a biscuit, or crust, or a glass of porter, or even a forbidden vegetable with his meals, it is better to give him his way than to tempt him to break through all rules altogether by playing the reckless truant." Diabetic patients should always chew their food slowly, and eat frequently, though moderately, taking their drink in a similar fashion. Junket (which contains a considerable quantity of milk-sugar) must be declared questionable for them.

The Devonshire delicacy, Junket, is made thus: Put three quarts of new milk into a china bowl, add three teaspoonfuls of rennet, and place it on the hob to set. When the curd is thick enough to bear, put a layer of scalded cream on the top, with a little nutmeg, and sifted sugar to taste; do not stir it. If sherry is added, its acidity will hinder digestion. By the Levantine people, a peculiar preparation of milk is made, which corresponds to our English curds and whey, or junket. It may be produced with us by warming a basin of new milk to blood heat, and immersing therein a portion of the inner, or woolly part of the globe artichoke, and letting it stand in a warm place. After twelve hours the milk will be found transformed into a remarkable curd of excellent taste, and, if the milk was good, no whey is separated; but if it has been disturbed, then the whey will come apart. Now if a little of this curd be placed in warm, new milk, and if the same be kept awhile in a warm corner, it will transform the new milk again into Yourt, or curd, as before, and thus Yourt can be kept going throughout the season. production of curd by the inner flowers of the artichoke was known to the ancient Greeks, and the recipe now given is according to a notice contained in the works of Aristotle.

This There is an essential difference between the clotting of milk, as in junket, and the curdling of milk as in sour milk, when the casein is simply precipitated without being at all changed. Quite the reverse is the case with clotted milk, in which the casein, or curd, undergoes profound internal alterations, and becomes (says Dr. Hutchison) practically a new substance, with new characteristics. A so-called cream cheese consisting of curd placed on rushes (juncos), so as to let all the whey drain off through them, is again a junket. Syllabubs are made by the addition to milk (or to Colostrum, the first milk which a cow gives again after calving) of wine, as Sherry, Madeira, or Port, perhaps Brandy, or, it may be, Cider, with nutmeg, or cinnamon, and sugar. A syllabub, more correctly sillabub, signifies really nothing more or less than swell-belly, swell-bouk, (Icelandic). th It would appear (Reliquiæ antique), that in the fourteenth century whey was used generally as a drink; it was known of old as Cerum, quidam liquor, whey. “Down to the milke house," wrote Pepys, in his Diary, "and drunk three glasses of whey." Halliwell tells of "Wheywhig, a pleasant and sharp beverage made by infusing mint, or sage, in butter-milk whey." To extemporise whey, "add a teaspoonful of cream of tartar, dissolved in a little hot water, to a pint of warm fresh new milk. After straining, and cooling, it will be ready for use. whey cure is sometimes combined with taking baths in this same liquid. Whey strained from curds produced by rennet with new milk, is a wholesome, nutritive drink, with some stimulating action on the kidneys, and is readily digested because the albuminous constituents are in solution, and by reason of the sugar of milk, as well as the mineral salts. The Separated milk, from which the cream has been abstracted, is practically skimmed milk, which, if left to itself in not too cold a place, develops, through the action of a certain bacterium, lactic acid, with separation of the remaining casein. Such separated milk is now sold as a summer drink, being less sour than the oldfashioned skim milk. The popular notion that by taking away the cream beforehand all the goodness is lost, is quite a misapprehension for considerable curd is still held in solution, as well as milk-sugar; and if bread and butter, or a piece of chocolate, be taken with the separated milk, then the full value of the original new milk is obtained, this drink being meanwhile cheaper than beer, and preferable thereto. For sterilizing milk, a temperature of 190° Fahrenheit is under ordinary conditions a safe and easily practicable course; and to heat the milk once thus is all that is necessary. Being treated in this way, the milk will remain sterilized in a room at an ordinary temperature for twenty, or thirty hours, even in warm weather. But Professor Koch pronounces that to boil milk does not exterminate the bacilli of tuberculosis, whilst sterilizing milk impairs its nutritive quality. The more any natural food is altered from its natural state, the more likely is it to produce scurvy; for example, as by sterilizing new fresh milk. This, when unboiled, contains in one quart as much citric acid (such as that of lemons, oranges, and potatoes) as occurs in a large lemon. But when milk is subjected to boiling, its power of continuing to hold this acid (as citrate of lime) unchanged, is much diminished, the same becoming converted by heat into the comparatively insoluble crystallizable form: the chemical reaction produced being that of converting the bicitrate of calcium into a less soluble tricitrate of calcium. Infantile scurvy is most prevalent among the classes where a child's diet is carefully restricted to boiled milk.

When a patient's digestion is very weak, if living in the country, or keeping a cow, he should make a dietetic trial of "strippings," that is, the milk obtained by re-milking the cow soon after it has been already milked. The supplementary milk will flow in quite a thin stream, at the end of the first milking, being rich in cream as fattening food, but containing very little casein, or more heavy proteids, and being thus less difficult of digestion than the first milk. In acute disease of the kidneys, a milk diet is found to increase the output of urea (poisonous, if retained) and of other solids, whilst diminishing the amount of morbid albumen in the urine. If the patient grows tired of new milk, then butter-milk will make a welcome change; or the "skimmed milk" from which the cream has been first separated, and in which, if left to itself and not too cold, is developed through bacterial action lactic acid, with a formation of the casein into curds, leaving a liquid whey, suitable as a change from the butter-milk. This whey will contain sugar of milk, and some of the mineral salts, though with a tendency to constipate; in which case, nevertheless, the swarms of putrefactive microbes, which commonly occupy the large intestine, producing poisonous alkaloids, toxins, and fatty acids, will be prevented from doing mischief by the lactic acid of the whey. A similar curative effect will follow the external use of butter-milk, or whey, in cases of chronic skin disease, such as persistent eczema, by destroying the noxious microbes which infest the affected skin. Amongst the normal symptoms exhibited by a patient on a purely milk diet, are a certain amount of drowsiness, and the passage of a large quantity of urine of a pale greenish colour; the tongue becomes coated with a white fur, and there is often a sweetish taste in the mouth. A moderate degree of constipation is favourable, orange-coloured stools being passed at intervals of two or three days. But if this symptom becomes too pronounced, then a little coffee or caramel may be added to the morning's milk, or a small plateful of stewed fruit, apples, figs, or French plums, may be eaten once a day.

Koumiss, which consists, in its integrity, of mares' milk, fermented, is of particular value as a food for weakly, or consumptive patients, because of certain products generated from the milk sugar, which materially help a defective power of digestion. An imitation of the Russian Tartar Koumiss is now made with considerable success at our principal dairies, with cows' milk, sugar, and yeast. The original Koumiss was used by the Bashkirs of the steppes of Orenburg, and Ssamura, having been prepared by them from time immemorial as a restorative food, and a mild alcoholic drink, after the hardships and deprivations endured throughout a rigorous winter. It attracted the attention of the Russian physicians in 1830, and thirty years later, of the Germans; but mares' milk would be too laxative for ordinary use. Kephir is the modern substitute for Koumiss. It is a white, foaming, slightly sweet, acidulous, and alcoholic refreshing drink, the alcohol increasing until the whole of the sugar is used