Milk analysis and infant feeding : a practical treatise on the examination of human and cows' milk, cream, condensed milk, etc. : and directions as to the diet of young infants / by Arthur V. Meigs.

  • Meigs, Arthur V. (Arthur Vincent), 1850-1912.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Milk analysis and infant feeding : a practical treatise on the examination of human and cows' milk, cream, condensed milk, etc. : and directions as to the diet of young infants / by Arthur V. Meigs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    one or two drops of rennet and a few drops of acetic acid. This is filtered, and the clear filtrate, they say, constitutes the serum, which consists of the sugar, extractive matters, and soluble salts. The amount of sugar in this serum was then estimated by means of the polarimetre.* This gives, they say, the exact quantity of sugar contained in the thirty grams. If this process is carried out, it is found that the milk does curdle, to be sure, but the coagulum, which contains much the larger part of the fat (none of which has been previously removed) as well as the casein, is of such a consistency that the moment it is thrown upon a filter it seems to fill all the pores of the paper, and nearly twenty-four hours are required to complete the filtration process. This, of course, makes it quite impossible to wash the residue left upon the filter, for if the attempt is made to pass any water through the mass of coag- ulum upon the paper, twenty-four hours more would be required, and during that time fermenta- tion would have occurred to such an extent as to entirely vitiate the results acquired. Fermentation is very apt to have begun, even when no attempt at washing is made, before the liquid has all drained through the paper, and must, to some slight extent, therefore, vitiate the accuracy of the results. Hav- * Pour connaitre la quantite de sucre, on soumet le serum au polarimetre, et en etudiant le degre de deviation du rayon polarise et recherchant sur une table constituee d' avance, sa deviation, on a la quantite exacte du sucre de lait contenue dans iooo grammes de serum du lait.