Art. V. THE CASE FOR THE GOAT.

1. The Book of the Goat. By H. S. Holmes Pegler. Third edition. London: Upcott Gill, 1886.

2. Milch-goats and their Management. By Bryan Hook. London: Vinton, 1896.

3. La Chèvre. By Joseph Crepin. Paris: Hachette, 1906. 4. Types and Breeds of Farm Animals. By C. I. Plumb. Boston, U.S.: Ginn, 1907.

5. Herd-book, 1906; List of Members and Annual Report of the British Goat Society.

Kingston-on-Thames :

H. S. Holmes Pegler, Allerton House.

6. Journal of the British Dairy-farmers' Association. London: Vinton, 1905, 1906.

7. Reports of Commission for the Investigation of Malta Fever under the supervision of a Committee of the Royal Society. London: Harrison, 1905.

8. Second Interim Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the relations of Human and Animal Tuberculosis. (Cd. 2322.) London: Wyman, 1907.

'There is no house possessing a goat but a blessing abidəth therein; and there is no house containing three goats but the angels pass the night praying there.'-Mahomet.

IT is fabled that a little excursionist of the Country Holiday Fund once tearfully refused a foaming mug of warm milk because it had been 'squeezed out of a muddy cow, and mother always gets her milk from a nice, clean shop.' Grown-up people may be interested in another source of milk-supply than the cow when they learn that a goat has given half a ton of milk in a year, that goat's milk is often as rich again as cow's milk, and that in this country it may practically be guaranteed to be free from the bacillus of tuberculosis.*

Since the rediscovery of the valuable animal which has been dubbed the 'poor man's cow,' and the formation of the British Goat Society, a little more than a quarter of a century ago, a great deal has been done to spread a

* The British public is phlegmatic, but about the milk question it shows a callousness which can only come from wilful ignorance. The attitude amounts to fatalism or trusting to luck.'-'British Medical Journal,' March 9, 1907.

knowledge of the useful qualities of what Mr Hook has called the most intelligent, most engaging, and most picturesque of domestic cattle.' Several dozen nannies are now exhibited for prizes at the Dairy Show; these animals have also a section to themselves at many of the county agricultural shows; and, as a result of careful breeding, good milking strains have been evolved and a pail record has been made which Mr Holmes Pegler, writing in 1885, seemed to find it difficult to believe possible.

But ignorance as to the economic value, the habits, and the improved breeds of the goat is still prevalent. A wider acquaintance with the truth about vacca pauperis might lead to such an improvement of the stamina of country and town children that we have sometimes been inclined to think that, now that the Utility Poultry Club, the National Poultry Organisation Society, and other active agencies are at work in the interests of poultry, a little of the attention which is devoted by public men to the extension of poultrykeeping might be directed to helping forward the cause of the humble milk-giver from which it seems possible to derive a more substantial return for a smaller expenditure of cash and labour than from any other domesticated creature. It is not only that the goat produces a relatively large quantity of milk, and exceptionally rich milk, but that, as we have said, this milk may be drunk practically without any risk of tubercular infection. How much this means in the case of milk-supplies for infants is obvious. Adults may be able to resist the onslaught of the tubercular bacilli with which so large a proportion of cow's milk is unfortunately charged. Infants, into whose diet larger quantities of milk enter, can hardly hope to come off so well in the struggle.

Let us briefly establish the facts as to the quantity, quality, and healthy character of goat's milk. The secretary of the Goat Society has himself supervised the weighing and measuring of the yield of a goat at Great Waltham. He found the daily average to be 10 lbs 5 ozs., or more than a gallon a day. This animal had been in milk for more than five months. Its yield is, of course, more than is customary; but there are plenty of goats in the country which give five gallons a week, and thou

sands which yield a somewhat smaller quantity. The American Milch Goat Association will not admit to its register a goat giving less than a quart a day. The author of 'La Chèvre' says he knows of an Alpine goat which, 'when newly kidded, and as a result of a remarkable appetite and of special feeding, gave eight litres (say seven quarts) daily for three weeks'!

As to the quality of goat's milk, it is little wonder that the public should be under a misapprehension, for even Dr Freyberger, pathologist to the London County Council, is reported to have said at an inquest* that 'goat's milk is worse than skimmed milk, and does not contain sufficient fat and sugar.' He was at once answered in the medical and lay press; for the data regarding the respective qualities of goat's and cow's milk are unassailable. So long ago as 1879, Dr Voelcker, F.R.S., reported on samples of goat's and cow's milk that they contained respectively 7·02 and 3.43 of pure butter and 5.28 and 5 12 of sugar. A later comparative analysis, the cow's milk in this case being from the winner of the champion milking prize at the Dairy Show, resulted as follows:

Stevenson and Murphy's Treatise on Hygiene and Public Health' states the percentage constituents of human, cow's, and goat's milk as follows:

As Dr Freyberger spoke of skimmed milk, its composition

* Daily Telegraph,' August 15, 1906.

may be added. It is-proteids 4.03, sugar 4.04, fat 1·0, and water 90.12. The London County Council pathologist might also be referred to Dr Eustace Smith's wellknown work on 'The Wasting Diseases of Infants and Children,' in which we read:

'With some children, in spite of all possible precautions, cow's milk, however carefully it may be prepared and administered, cannot be digested. . . . In such cases, if there are objections to a wet nurse, recourse must be had to the milk of some other animal, and preference should be given to a milk which contains a smaller proportion of casein than is found in the milk of the cow, such as goats' or asses' milk.'

In the 'British Medical Journal' of June 23, 1906, Dr J. L. Stretton writes that at a crèche in Alexandria the matron told him that the babies were fed direct from goats—that is, by having their mouths applied to the washed teats, as is done in Cuba, in some parts of France, and by goat-owners in England known to the present writer in the case of their own infants-and, as she said, 'the babies are plump and rosy, need no medicine, rarely cry, just drink and sleep.' This report on the condition of these particular children was confirmed by Major W. D. Erskine, R.A.M.C., in a later issue of the 'Journal.' The same publication, on May 12, 1906, quotes with approval the following extract from a paper read by Mr Finley Bell before the New York Academy of Medicine, in which he gave reasons for recommending the more extensive use of goat's milk in the feeding of infants.

'Dr Bell reports two cases of wasting infants in whom improvement began as soon as they were put upon a mixture of goat's milk and water in place of cow's milk modified in various ways, and suggests that the fat of goat's milk being fluid at a point below the normal temperature of the body may interfere less with gastric secretion, while it is not less digestible by the pancreatic juice. Other advantages which he claims for the goat are: "She is more docile, less excitable, not subject to tuberculosis or other disease in this climate. Being browsers rather than grazers, they will thrive when cows would not; and, above all, she is cleanly. Her excre

ment is solid and her tail short, consequently she is not Vol. 207.-No. 412.

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covered with manure as is the cow. It is safe to assert that the production of cow's milk free from manure bacteria is commercially impossible. Not so with the goat; she can be easily washed (tubbed if necessary) and aproned for milking."' We have also before us the enthusiastic testimony of ten other medical men writing from personal experience in favour of goat's milk for children.

In saying that the goat is not subject to tuberculosis, Dr Bell is in agreement with Sir William Broadbent, who, speaking at Huddersfield in October 1898 on the prevention of tuberculosis, asked his audience to note that 'goats do not suffer from tuberculosis.' He is also supported by the testimony of leading English goatkeepers, of every publication concerning goats, and of Prof. Nocard, who, some seventeen years since, stated that in the 130,000 goats and kids brought to Paris for slaughter at the shambles of La Villette every spring, the meat inspectors had failed to find a single case of tuberculosis. The data of the Commission for the Investigation of Mediterranean Fever leave no doubt, however, that the goats of Malta are liable to tuberculosis. No one is particularly desirous, however, of importing Maltese goats. An authority writes: "They have never proved to be milkers in this country. In fact I do not know of a single specimen.' It is probable that, as the Board of Agriculture is advised, 'goats are susceptible to tuberculosis though rarely affected with it.' The fact nevertheless remains that, regarded from a sanitary point of view, there is no comparison between the usual standards of goat's milk and cow's milk.

No one knows how many goats there are in England, Wales, and Scotland, because the Board of Agriculture does not see its way to include the goat in its agricultural census. It is difficult to see any reason why the required information could not be obtained from the district enumerators annually employed to calculate crop-yields.

* Dr Benham, at Brighton, on February 27, read a description of the usual conditions which prevailed in farms; and horrible in its own way was the callous exclamation of the youth who milked the cows when manure which had fallen into the pail was pointed out to him: That ain't nothing; that's only off the cow.'-'British Medical Journal,' March 9, 1907. The milk from one dirty farm can contaminate a whole supply, inasmuch as the milk is mixed at factories.'-Ibid.