Practical infant feeding ; feeding formulas.

  • Winters, Joseph Edcil, 1848-1922.
Date:
©[1909?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical infant feeding ; feeding formulas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    Fat is paramount as a source of heat. Heat (co-relative of force) is converted into force and energy for every action and function of the organ- ism. To sustain heat, respiration, and nervous energy in a new-born child, fat must be present in large amount. 77i Per cent- 0I heat lost to the body is from cutaneous surface. The surface of a child is relatively three times as great as that of an adult. The larger the cutaneous surface relative to the size of the body, the greater is the amount of heat lost by radiation and evaporation. Ex- penditure of heat is 130 calories per kilogram of body-weight in an infant of five months; 91 calories in a child of a year and a half; 35 calories in an adult. This large and rapid heat loss makes an ample supply of the pre-eminent body fuel, fat, a physiological necessity. That the 6 per cent, or more of fat in woman's milk is pre- requisite, preordained, and physiological, is expressly declared by the presence in the brain of eight per cent, fat, in the nerves twenty-two per cent., both of which are developing with great rapidity; in the marrow of bone, where the red blood-cells are chiefly formed, ninety-six per cent. fat. These tissues are all increasing in weight and functional activity with marvelous rapidity. The brain doubles its weight in the first two years of life. In these structures an infant is laying down a large amount of tissue rich in fat—fat for every nerve and brain cell, and for the marrow cells. Control Observations Fat Incommensurate with Physiological Standard Exemplified When mother's milk, or an artificial food, is seriously defective in fat> there are identical stamps of profound innutrition, i.e., depressed fontanelle> sunken intercostal spaces, anaemia, inanimation. The pallid, wan, inanimate baby, is striking betrayal of famished bone- marrow, and nerve. The fat stored during intrauterine formation * has been totally oxidized to sustain heat, respiration, and nervous energy. Restore breast milk ample in fat, or an exact counterpart in an artificial food, and plumpness, firmness, rosiness, animation, joy of babyhood, super- sede pallor and apathy. Foods deficient in fat for nutrition of brain cells and of marrow cells, are answerable for the mournful little old men and women, who never smile. That fat is vital in the nutrition of young growing animals, is evident from its large proportion in the milk of all animals. * In the eight months' fcetus, fat is 2.44 per cent, of the total constituents; in the nine months' fcetus 8./ per cent. Nearly one-half of the dry residue of the body of an infant at birth is fat. The relatively great fat requirement of an infant is vital by virtue of the peculiaritv of an infant's bodv. [3]