MILK AND EARLY RISING
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Six,—In common with (I feel) most of your readers I was very much interested in Mr. Peter F. Somerville's article on " Painless Early Rising " in your last issue. 'A new interest in the sunrise is an experience always worth acquiring—even though its acquisition may involve a certain self-sacrifice. In the case of Mr. Somerville, it appears, this added joy to life was purchased at the trifling cost of drinking a certain quantity of milk in the place of tea or coffee.
May I be allowed to point out that this was no real sacrifice?
The dietetic value of milk is in this country as yet insufli. ciently recognized. The report issued last year by the Medical Research Council on the subject of " Diets for Boys during the School Age " contains evidence on the health value of milk which may be regarded as conclusive. According to Dr. II. C. Corry-Mann, who bases his conclusions on a series of experi- ments conducted at an institution for boys, the addition of one pint of milk a day " to a diet which by itself satisfied the appetite of growing boys fed upon it, converted an average annual gain of weight of 3-85 lb. per boy into one of 6-98 lb. and an annual average increase of height from 1.84 inches to 2-63 inches. The experiment of supplying milk to a selected number of the boys at this establishment was continued for a succession of years, and in a period of eighteen month; after its inception it was discovered that these boys exhibited a degree of fitness superior to that in all the other boys. It is noteworthy that the milk used in these experiments was not specially selected, but the ordinary stopper-bottled, pas. teurized milk of London's " daily round."
These facts are deserving of serious consideration. It is true that the experiments were carried out only on gmw•ing boys, but, physically no less than mentally, the boy is father to the man, and a diet likely to benefit a boy of twelve will prove scarcely less advantageous to his parents. To sleep without satiety and to rise without remorse is both the centre and the circumference of a contented life, and one of the means to that blissful consummation is certainly to be found in a temperate addiction to milk.—I am, Sir, &c.,
M.B., B.S. (Loin.).
[We entirely agree with our correspondent. The great majority of the British working classes suffer from an insuffi- ciency of milk diet. We have much to learn from Canada and the United States in this respect. Throughout North America the worker, both brain and hand, drinks his glass of milk as frequently as the British worker drinks his glass of beer. The Spectator is at all times ready to assist a Drink More Milk" campaign. Perhaps some statistician can provide us with figures showing the per capita consumption of milk, say, in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the United States.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
