A simple, inexpensive stock formula for young infants

Abstract

" F H E artificial feeding of young infants did not become a science unJ t t i l the beginning of the twentieth century when the Paris obstetrician, Pierre Budin, said: " I n sterilized milk alone is safety and it must be the basis of all artificial feeding. The purest of milks, the sterile supply which flows from the mother's breast, given in excess, may cause fatal digestive troubles." His law, based on many years of clinical observation, states that there is danger in feeding more milk in twenty-four hours than the equivalent of one-tenth of the infant's body weight. For the first third of the century most of the artificially fed infants of France have been fed small, increasing quantities of undiluted, sterile milk. Early in the century Heubner, Germany's first pediatrician, proved by means of the calorimeter, that the young infant requires approximately 100 calories per kilogram of body weight (about 45 calories per pound) in twenty-four hours. His one-third, one-half and twothirds milk dilutions, enriched with lactose before sterilization, have retained their popularity for over a fourth of a century in many European countries. He stressed the danger of feeding more carbohydrate in twenty-four hours than the equivalent of one one-hundredth of the infant 's body weight. During the second decade, summer diarrhea with a high infant death rate from alimentary intoxication continued among artificially fed infants throughout Europe and America. Czerny and Keller put their faith in buttermilk, boiled with flour and sugar; Finkelstein and Meyer perfected Eiweiss-milch (protein milk); Soxhlet convinced the pediatric world that the combination of dextrin and maltose (Niihrzucker) could be fed in larger amounts than could lactose, without provoking fermentation and diarrhea. Roteh's percentage method gained adherents in our Eastern States, but proved to be no panacea. By 1912 dextrimaltose had already replaced Niihrzueker as the American carbohydrate of choice. A few years later Marriott found that the addition of lactic acid to sterilized cow's milk dilutions permitted the feeding of higher concentrations of milk and corn syrup. His formulas quickly gained in popularity and are today extensively used in the feeding of well and nutritionally disturbed infants.