Still, some comments are necessary. In mother's milk we find milk sugar. This milk sugar is found in the milk even though no such sugar is included in the mother's diet. Evidently then the milk sugar is a product which the body can manufacture. Experience has shown that milk is the best food for infants. In this liquid the only carbohydrate present is milk sugar. This has led to the view that milk sugar is a much better carbohydrate for infants than other carbohydrates.

Still another reason has been advanced in favor of milk sugar. In the brain tissue are found a number of ill-defined substances, called cerebro-galacto-sides, which by special treatment the chemist can decompose into a number of substances, one of which is galactose (hence the name cerebro-galacto-sides). Much of what we knew of these substances we owe to Professor Gies. You will remember that galactose is one of the three simple substances into which all carbohydrates are changed before absorption. Now it so happens that among the carbohydrates we eat, milk sugar alone yields this galactose when acted upon by the juices in the digestive tract.

And milk sugar is found in milk. This has led same pediatricians to advocate milk sugar because of its possible function in the building up of brain tissue. But when we consider that galactose, like any other sugar, is converted to animal starch (glycogen) in the liver, and that then the animal starch becomes the source of the carbohydrate supply throughout the body, such a view lacks support.

On the other hand, eminent physicians are not wanting who are equally enthusiastic exponents of other carbohydrates in infant feeding. Some pin their faith to cane sugar; others to maltose; still other to starch and dextrin. The entire subject needs study of a much more exact nature.