Massacre of the Innocents

image 1image 2image 3image 4cropped image 1

MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS.

The report of Alderman Scholes,¹ in relation to cow-stables and swill-milk² depots in the city, a brief abstract of the body of which we gave yesterday, recalls our attention very forcibly to a particular phase of this subject—we mean the great amount of sickness and mortality caused among children by the use of this diseased milk.

It is, as the author of the report expresses it, "a horrible thought" that a mother should administer each day to her child that which she supposes will nourish and strengthen it, but which, in fact, only hurries it to its grave. But that it is a fact that thousands of babes are thus annually poisoned can scarcely be doubted. Statement upon statement has been made, orally and written, by men of science and veracity, testifying to the marked effect of swill-milk upon children, and the cessation of all disturbance and the restoration to health immediately upon discontinuing the milk. The vast amount of infant mortality which under the head of "marasmus" swells the lists, are also ascribed to this cause.³

The wide difference existing between pure country milk and this stuff does not yet seem to be fully understood by the majority of people, although in one shape or another the matter has been brought with sufficient frequency and prominence before them. In the first place the distillery slop milk is far weaker than the Orange Co. In 1000 parts of the latter 35 are butter, while of 1000 parts of distillery milk there will be found not more than 10 to 14 parts of butter. Another important fact is that distillery milk will not coagulate in less than six hours, while pure milk, under the same influences, coagulates in one hour. Now, as we all know, the first change in the fluid after it enters the stomach is coagulation, the second assimilation. If, therefore, a quantity of milk should refuse to coagulate, it remains as an indigestible substance in the stomach; and the ordinary effects are produced which are usual to children when their stomachs are improperly loaded—namely, convulsions, vomiting and purging. Apart from this, in the increased color of the epithelial cells, noted in every chemists analysis of the distillery milk an unnatural condition is evident, caused perhaps by an excess of stimulation.

A physician of high standing, who has had cause to investigate the effects of this milk upon children, says: "Children who are fed upon still-slop-milk have a pale cachectic appearance, are extremely subject to scrofula, and are liable to take any epidemic disease prevalent. To scarlet-fever, measles, hooping-cough, they are particularly subject and will take them upon the slightest exposure; such children being likely to sink, under any serious disease with which they may be attacked. There is a laxity of the solids and a visited condition of the fluids which predispose them to disease in its most malignant form." The same authority goes on to say that cholera infantum itself, which is such a terrible scourge in our large cities, especially New York and Brooklyn, is, in fact, chiefly caused by the use of this milk, either by the mother or child. It is an absolute fact that in the large cities of Europe where other causes of disease with the exception of this are as prevalent as in New York, this disease is absolutely unknown.

Apart from the other numerous evils inflicted upon the community by the presence of these nuisances the cow-stables, these truths in reference to the ruinous effect of the diseased milk upon children should stir up the public to the extent and prevalence of the danger. This is a matter in which every parent is interested. True, the matter has been very fully discussed already, in all its bearings; but, so long as the evil exists, the subject should be agitated again and again. The report of Alderman Scholes, as our readers are aware, has been made the special order for the consideration of the Board two weeks hence, when there will doubtless be an interesting discussion. It remains to be seen whether or not our city is to suffer any longer the presence of these abominations, and whether health and life are to be sacrificed upon the altar of the Moloch of private greed.

---