The disorders of digestion in infancy and childhood / by W. Soltau Fenwick.

  • Fenwick, W. Soltau (William Soltau)
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The disorders of digestion in infancy and childhood / by W. Soltau Fenwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/432 (page 15)
    examined the gastric contents of forty healthy infants, ranging from four to seventy-seven days old, some of which were fed upon the breast, while others were nourished upon cow's milk. This observer found that the stomachs of children fed in an artificial manner usually contained about twenty times as many micro- orofanisms as infants at the breast, and that in cases of thrush the number of bacteria was always enor- mously increased. Among the various species which he was able to isolate, the B. lactis aerogenes occurred in 376 per cent, of the breast-fed, and 45 per cent, of bottle-fed infants; the B. subtilis in 117 per cent, of breast-fed, and 368 per cent, of bottle-fed ; the Oidium lactis in 12'9 per cent, of breast-fed, and 27*3 per cent, of bottle-fed ; the Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus in 16*4 per cent, of the breast-fed, and in 27*2 per cent, of the bottle-fed ; non-liquefying cocci in 12'9 per cent, of the breast-fed, and 54*4 per cent, of the bottle- fed ; while the B. fiuorescens liqiiefaciens occurred in 24'3 per cent, of the bottle-fed, and the B. butyricus (Hueppe) in every case where the infant was nourished upon cow's milk. The relative number of these micro- organisms did not vary to any marked extent during the different stages of digestion, and the majority could be extracted from the stomach in an active state at the height of the process. Many of these bacteria could also be obtained from the organ in the intervals of digestion, so that it is obvious that the stomach in infancy, instead of being a ' sterilizing chamber,' must be regarded as a natural form of incubator, in which every species of micro-organism that finds an entrance with the food is afforded every facility for growth and multiplication.