Further Report on Lactic Acid Content of Human Milk and Arakawa's Reaction. Part 1

Abstract

1. Lactic acid content of milk samples strongly or normally posi-tive to Arakawa's reaction was 4.5_??_8.6 mgrms. % being 6.1 rngrms. % on an average (Cf. Table 1). Lactic acid content of milk samples weakly positive to Arakawa's reaction was 5.7_??_15.0 mgrms., be-ing 9.7 mgrms. % on an average (Cf. Table 3). Thus, lactic acid con-tent of milk sample weakly positive to A r a k a w a's reaction was aver-agingly larger by about 60 than that of those strongly or normally positive to it (Cf. Table 5). Lactic acid content of milk samples com-pletely or almost negative to Arakawa's reaction was 6.6_??_22.5 mgrms. %, being 12.3 rngrms. on an average (Cf. Table 4). Thus, lactic acid content of milk samples completely or almost negative to Arakawa's reaction was larger averagingly by about 100% than that of those strongly or normally positive to it, and the Arakawa-negative milk sample was larger averagingly by about 84, %/ than the Arakawa-positive one (Cf. Table 5). 2. There was no definite relation between lactic acid content of human milk on one side, and on the other side, the age of lactating mothers, the age of infants, or feeding of infants (exclusively or subsi-diarily breast-fed), respectively (Cf. Tables 7, 8 and 9). 3. As above stated, the difference of lactic acid content of human milk was the more pronounced, as the difference of the Arakawa's reaction was the more divergent. But among cases of the same inten-sity of the Arakawa's reaction, mothers with vitamin B intake show-ed a smaller content of lactic acid of milk samples than those with no vitamin B intake (Cf. Table 10). As has been repeatedly shown by a number of papers from this Laboratory, mothers with milk negative to Arakawa's reaction are generally in a state of B-avitaminosis. So it will be agreed that milk with a large lactic acid content will be found much more frequently in B-avitaminotic mothers than in healthy ones.