Country Life
THE SECRET OF HEALTH'.
An eminent authority in Scotland, who was much interested in recent discussions in this place on "The Oslo Breakfast," urges me to put forward a definite national scheme that would at once improve the health and physique of our people and revive agriculture. Now the Scottish investigations into the value of milk for children had the most striking results ever recorded in what may be called social dietetics. Over one thousand four hundred children were tested ; and the facts and the results, published at the time, stirred the interest of doctors, farmers, and social reformers all over the world. They helped to encourage the Scandinavians to take definite action, of which the Oslo breakfast is, perhaps, one minor example. Briefly the children who were given a daily ration of milk showed an average increase of height of twenty-three per cent, odd and an average increase of weight of forty-five per cent, odd over those who did not have the extra milk. The milk appeared to have an astounding influence on physical development, independently of the rest of the diet, whether it was theoretically sufficient or not. Repetition of the experiment, carried out by expert workers under careful control, supported the first results. We may take it as proved, that the healthy growth of children depends very largely on the amount of milk they drink.
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