"These observations led them to examine the varying qualities of milk on a more extensive scale, as to the simple fact of the predominance of acid or alkali; and for this purpose they availed themselves of a test which may be procured without difficulty from the chemists. It is paper dipped into a solution of litimus. If it be of good quality, the blue color will be changed to red by a fluid which is acid. A tincture of blue cabbage will detect acidity also, if it is sufficiently fresh, in the same way.

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During a voyage through Flanders, M. D'Arcet, in company with the celebrated chemist, Gay-Lussac, visited some of the best dairies, in which the cows are fed upon the meadows, and found the milk, without exception, to contain a predominance of alkali. They examined the milk of cows fed in the stall on turnips, the leaves of vegetables, etc., which were allowed to pass two hours a day in the pastures, and found it uniformly acid.

"The same experiments were repeated in the grazing regions in the north of France, and uniformly with the same results.

"It would then seem to be fully ascertained, that pure and perfect milk can only be given by cows that pass the greater part of the day in the pastures during the mild season; and that it cannot be furnished by cows which are fed upon the parings and tops of vegetables, or of other food than the grasses, and are deprived of exercise—to say nothing of the pernicious effects of the distillery slop or the sour and putrid remnants of the kitchen. And yet this milk must be the staff of life in childhood-the staff of which its bones and sinews are formed; and its quality will do much in determining the vigor or feebleness of the next generation in your city. It is too true that the imand often infected air, and the limited exercise of chil

pure

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dren in a city, added to the intense excitement of its movement and bustle, while they often render childhood precocious, and youth premature, lead to decay equally premature in a generation taken together. But, surely, this is an additional reason for seeking the purest and best possible nourishment, in order to counteract these inevitable causes of decline.

"I am sure, that many a mother will thank me for adding that these chemists, on observing variations equally great in the digestion of children fed by different nurses, found the same difference in the quality of the milk; and that which was thrown up frequently coagulated, was uniformly sour when received, not to the taste always, but as tested by litimus paper. They observed that the child is not only deprived in this manner of suitable food, but he is obliged to call for it forty or fifty times a day instead of four or five times, and thus fatigues and injures his own stomach without being nourished, and wearies and exhausts his nurse so as to render the quality of the milk still worse.Such a state of things, they say, ought to be immediately remedied, and that it can be done by giving the mother or nurse a more simple diet, or by means of medicine, which a judicious physician can best prescribe, among which they consider minute doses of supercarbonate of soda the best.

"But can nothing be done to palliate the evil until we can obtain pure milk? M. D'Arcet made the experiment in his own family of adding one half a grain of supercarbonate of soda to a pint of new milk from a city-fed cow, and succeeded in rendering it harmless at least, and far more nutritious. One of his children, so feeble that he despaired of being able to save him, was thus suitably nourished, and grew up to vigorous health, by observing daily the quality of the mother's and finally of the cow's

milk, and taking the proper measures to correct its defects. Now it will be incomparably better to procure the pure milk of the grass-fed cows on the banks of the Hudson, and on the hills of Connecticut, than thus to feed the poor children with a drugged mixture; but it will be at least a temporary palliative until the northern rail-road can be completed, and pure milk can be obtained as easily as the pure water of the Croton river.”

This correspondent concludes his letter with a very proper caution to housekeepers to beware of converting food into medicine, by increasing the quantity of supercarbonate of soda. "I have known," he remarks, "this simple, harmless thing, as it called, even in the form of excessive drafts of soda water, produce sores in the mouth and lips, which indicate corresponding sores in the stomach; and this was followed by all the miseries of dyspepsia and decline. An able physician assures me, that he could ascribe the death of a patient, from a similar state of mouth and stomach, to nothing but the far-famed morning cordial of Connecticut lay-physicians, pearlash and cider. It is time the world had learned that medicine cannot be safely used as daily food or drink, without leading to disease."

6

The interest of the facts in the foregoing communication, has induced us to introduce it nearly entire. It will have been observed that the alkalescency of milk as an unvarying test of its goodness, is insisted upon, and also that the leading principles we are endeavoring to establish are recognized and endorsed by some of the most sagacious and expert analysts in Europe. Truth is truth, and cannot be invalidated by discrepancies of opinions. But this striking coincidence, being the result of independent observation and scientific inquiry, it evidently presents a

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broader basis for public confidence, than was before possessed; and as the general positions are of great practical importance to the physiologists and philanthropists of our own country, it may be hoped that, in view of the authorities by which they are sustained, none will be induced to reject them without careful experimental examination.

But to return. If alkalescency is an unvarying attribute of healthy milk, then it follows that slop-milk and other kinds similarly produced are unhealthy; for all such milk, as demonstrated by our own experiments, is uniformly acid. We have never known an exception; and nothing less than a miracle in vital chemistry could make it otherwise. Other causes doubtless contribute to this result; but it may suffice to remark, that the slop is usually eaten in the acetous state, and is so powerfully acid, as rapidly to decompose iron. We have observed an inch iron pumpstave, by being exposed to its action, destroyed in a short time. The milk is not only proved to be acid by appropriate tests, but when fresh is often sour to the taste. In summer it will spoil in four or five hours, while grass-milk, with no greater care, will keep from twelve to twenty-four hours.

It may be in place here to state, that "beer-grains," or the refuse of the breweries, which are in so great demand for the use of city milk-dairies in England, and also to some extent in this country, uniformly produce, it is believed, acid milk; such at least has been the character of every sample which has come under our observation. It is conceded that beer-grains, when used with other proper food, are more nutritious and healthy for cattle than slop; they keep the cows in better condition, and make richer milk. But this is all that can be said in their favor, for the milk by experiment is invariably found to be acid. It is,

of course, unhealthy, and should be rejected. Why should it be used, when pure alkaline milk can be obtained? If the choice was between slop-milk and that produced from beer-grains, the latter should be preferred. But as we are not obliged to use either, both should be unhesitatingly discarded. Let there be no compromise with these evils. When complete reform is practicable no half-way measures should be attempted. Besides, there is no more necessity nor consistency in supporting the brewery, than in patronizing the distillery.

From the accounts published in foreign journals, it appears, that the condition of our population in regard to milk, is incomparably worse than any thing which came under the observation of the French chemists. The slopmilk with which this community is deluged, is not only acid, the chief thing of which they complain, but is innutritious, and diseased, and drugged, and diluted besides. There appears, therefore, no remedy or alternative in our case, but utterly to reject it. So thoroughly convinced are we of its deleterious properties, that we would not give it to a dog whose life we valued; and in these conclusions, every impartial mind, on careful examination, will doubtless concur. Essential as milk is deemed in domestic economy, it were certainly better to forego its use altogether, than by its consumption risk the health of our families, and countenance an imposition which is insidiously destroying the lives of thousands.