THE “DROP OF MILK”

Belgium is succoring her weak children, but she is going deeper than this: she is trying to prevent weak children. All through the country there are cantines where an expectant or young mother without means may receive free a daily dinner, consisting usually of a thick soup, a meat or egg dish with vegetables, a dessert with lactogenized cream, and a measure of milk. Light service, like the peeling of vegetables, is often required in return. The mother may come as early as three months before the birth of her child, and if she is still nursing it, may continue nine months after its birth. About 7,000 mothers are receiving this dinner, and 6,000 more come to the affiliated consultation cantines for advice.

Of course, there are always those who can not nurse their children, or who can carry them through but a short period, when the question of pasteurized milk becomes all-important. The “Goutte de Lait” (drop of milk) sections meet this problem by offering the necessary feedings of pure milk. The mother may pay for the bottles, and have them delivered, or she may, if necessitous, receive them free by calling or sending for them.

In Antwerp, where this work has assumed unusual proportions, a big-hearted president of the Belgian Provincial Committee got permission to purchase 100 cows in Holland and to hold them without danger of requisition. He installed a model dairy on his place, and now gives all the baby cantines pure milk. He is always most anxious to finish his arduous day’s work at the bureau, so that he may return to his dairy, examine the milk tests, and review his fine herd. One of his daughters, in addition to hours spent in the cantines, takes the entire responsibility of the management of this dairy. Other towns are less fortunate, and must struggle continually to get the milk they require. There is a beautiful development of the work of a “Goutte de Lait” in Hasselt, in a cantine occupying part of a maternity hospital. There they have an admirable equipment for sterilization and pasteurization. At 7 o’clock in the morning I found the women directors already busy with the preparation of the milk. Each feeding has its separate bottle, and may be kept sealed till the baby receives it. After seven months, white phosphatine, a mixture of the flour of wheat, rice and corn, with salt, sugar and phosphate of lime, is furnished; at fourteen months, cocoa is added, and after two years, soup and bread.

I happened to arrive on the weekly weighing day. One hundred mothers were gathered in a large, cheery room, their babies in their arms, many of them gay in the pretty bonnets the doctor’s wife had made for those who had the best records. They passed, a few at a time, into the smaller room where the doctor and his wife examined, weighed, counseled, while two assistants registered important details; the three young nurses generally aided the mothers and their chiefs.

Then I was shown an adjoining room, where, in the corners, there were heaps of little white balls rolled in wax paper. From a distance they looked more than anything else like tiny popcorn balls. What could they mean? I took one in my hand and saw that they meant that the most precious prize that can be offered a Belgian mother to-day is a tiny ball of white lard! With the more ignorant, this prize-system is the swiftest means of opening the way. The doctor laughed as he recounted his struggle with one obstinate woman, who argued stoutly that because the cow is a great, strong creature, while she herself is but small and frail, undoubtedly its milk would be infinitely more strengthening to her child than her own! Where argument failed, the prize convinced. If a mother can nurse her baby but neglects to, she is forced to feed it regularly before some member of the committee. Nurses visit all the homes registered.

The attempt is being made everywhere to induce mothers who are not actually in want, to enroll in these cantines, while paying for their food, that they may have the benefit of the pure milk and the physician’s care. The “Relief” is not counting the cost of this fundamental work—the baby cantines are the promise of the future. They are already closely watching the development of 53,000 babies. The educational value alone can not be measured; women who had not the faintest conception of the simplest laws of hygiene are being trained, forced to learn, because their own and their children’s food can come to them only from the hand of their teacher. While the war has brought unutterable misery, it has also brought extraordinary opportunity, and Belgium is seizing this opportunity wherever she can.

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