Indeed, many of these cows are never "dry," but continue to produce milk, that is sold in the market, from one calf to the next, year after year. I have seen cows milk for ten or more years, without once being dry, and having a calf a year during this time.

This constitutes a drain on the cows which makes it impossible for one of them to be healthy. They are especially prone to tuberculosis and have their lives greatly shortened. While almost all dairy cattle are tubercular, this disease is extremely rare among the range cattle of the plains.

Added to the evils of excessive milk production, is the evil of overfeeding on a one-sided and high protein diet. This tends to produce disease in the cow and to greatly impair her milk also. An excess of protein in the mother's diet impairs her milk for her baby, then certainly an excess of protein in the diet of the cow, whose milk already contains far more protein than that of a woman, is bad for the child. An excess of fat is also bad for the infant. Our dairy herds have been so bred and they are so fed that their milk contains a great excess of fat

Dairymen and farmers produce milk to sell, and the more milk and butter-fat a cow produces the more profits there is in it for them. Farmers and dairymen are not different to owners of coal mines or cotton mills--they are interested only in increasing their profits. They will produce only that kind of milk and those quantities of milk that brings in the most money for them, regardless of its evil effect upon the users of the milk.

Cows from which certified milk is produced are kept throughout the year in sunless barns, are permitted a very limited amount of exercise and are fed chiefly on dry food, being given little or no fresh green fodder. This sickens the cow and assures the deterioration of her milk. Cows need green grass, exercise, fresh air and sunshine. Dr. Hess, of Columbia University, showed that milk from cows fed on pastures in the sunlight maintains the health and growth of animals, whereas milk from cows maintained out of the sun and fed on dry fodder will not.

The best of cow's milk can be obtained only from healthy, range-fed cows, which get plenty of green foods, an abundance of sunshine and fresh air, and are not tuberculin tested (poisoned) and are not stuffed on protein-rich foods to over-stimulate milk production.

Dairy cows and particularly "certified" herds, are now all tuberculin tested--that is, poisoned and sickened. The tuberculin test is a fraud. It is not a reliable test for tuberculosis, as every doctor well knows. Give it to animals in large doses and they "promptly die with symptoms of an intense intoxication," in "moderate doses," "the animals display the symptoms of a profound intoxication, but gradually recover, with a mild and chronic form of disease."

Tuberculin is the putrescent resultant of decomposing beef broth containing glycerine and is preserved with carbolic acid. It is not merely a poison, it a whole array of poisons.

The very best of cow's milk is poor enough as infant food, without making it still worse by pasteurization. Pasteurizing milk leads to carelessness and assures us dirty milk. This will be more fully discussed in the next chapter.

Milk also undergoes deterioration after it is milked and permitted to stand. Its food value is markedly impaired by being frozen.

Present methods of producing and handling milk make it next to impossible to procure good milk in the markets. These present methods are largely the results of the work of physicians who urge us to use more milk. Do not censure me too strongly, then, when I declare that the medical profession is determined that there shall not be a healthy child in America and that no child shall be permitted to have good food.

The word "protein" is a very indefinite term and it is known that the same amount of protein and calories from different sources may have very different food values. Cow's milk possesses a different and inferior protein to that found in mother's milk and, while well suited to the needs of the calf, is poorly fitted to the nourishment of the infant.

Both the mineral content and the vitamin content of cow's milk, the milk most commonly used in this country, vary greatly, perhaps more than those of any other food product. They vary with food and season. Milk may be almost entirely lacking in vitamins. This is especially so in winter when green foods are lacking. Certified milk, produced by cows kept in sunless barns and fed on dry foods, is very deficient in vitamins. Malnutrition is common among certified herds. Milk also undergoes considerable deterioration by being exposed to the air and from being chilled.

Biological tests have shown that cow's milk is poor, as compared to other foods, in growth-complettin (vitamin) B. The same is true of human milk. Of course, the milk of a normal, well-nourished mother or cow possesses enough of this vitamin to supply the needs of infant or calf, but when cow's milk is diluted, in preparing it for the infant, this food quality is dangerously reduced.

Cow's milk forms a large, hard, tough curd that is difficult for the infant to digest. Human milk forms small, soft flocculent masses which are easy of digestion.

These different physical and chemical characteristics of the milk of the two mothers are designed to meet the different requirements of the young of the two species and the two milks are not, therefore, interchangeable. It follows, logically, that the cow is not the best mother of the human infant and when she adopted our children, she did them an injury.

Many investigators, among them Freise, Mattill and Conklin have reached the conclusion that after a certain age has been attained, milk is unsuitable as the sole source of protein. Some of these investigators think that this is due to the fact that the milk protein is not sufficiently concentrated. Berg says that their experiments do not reveal any inadequacy in the composition of the milk protein, but that the results they obtained are due to the modified requirements of the adult organism in the matter of the mineral requirements. Without determining which of these conclusions is the correct one, it is obvious from the results of their experiments that milk is not a good food for the non-suckling organism. After the normal nursing period has been passed, milk may be profitably dropped from the child's diet.

There is everywhere a tendency to exaggerate the value and importance of milk. All the virtues ascribed to milk, as a food for the infant and growing child, belong properly to the milk of the healthy well-nourished mother and to no other milk. Diseased and inadequately nourished mothers do not produce adequate milks. Breastfed infants often develop rickets during the latter part of winter, due to insufficient "vitamin C" in the mother's diet. Milk from cows fed on a "vitamin D" deficient diet will neither prevent nor cure nor allay the course of clinical rickets in infants. Both breast-fed and bottle-fed infants on an exclusive milk diet may develop rickets.

It is apparent that milk possesses no exceptional factors of safety against certain deficiency diseases. Infants have developed deficiency disease while being nursed by mothers who were apparently well-nourished. On the other hand, the current manner of feeding dairy cattle and the present methods of treating milk affect the vitamin C of milk. Straining, cooking, pasteurizing and re-pasteurizing milk damage it in many ways. So, also, does the freezing of milk. Oxygenation occurs in milk as it stands--nature provided for milk to flow directly from the producer to the consumer, without all the delay, preserving and tampering. Some types of containers are said to render catalytic action a possibility.

Milk is poor in iodine and in iron. Anemia has resulted in animals restricted to a diet of cow's milk. Infants are born with a rich store of reserve iron, providing the mother's diet and tissues have been able to provide this. Otherwise the infant may not possess a rich surplus of iron and the exclusive milk diet may result in anemia. For these reasons, among others, I have for years advocated supplementing both mother's milk and cow's milk with fruit juices--not a few drops or a few teaspoonfuls a day; but large quantities of juice to supply minerals, carbohydrates and "vitamins." Fresh grape juice for iron and sugar, orange juice for "vitamin C," prune juice for calcium and sugar, etc. All of these juices contain minerals.

Due to the failure of milk in the winter, I advocate having all babies born in the early spring, so that their period of most rapid growth shall have been passed before the milk failure sets in. Here in the Southwest, where we are blessed with an abundance of fresh fruits and green vegetables throughout the whole year, this control of birth is not nearly so important as in the North, where most babies develop rickets. Here in San Antonio and vicinity we have plenty of winter sunshine to supply "vitamin D."