Monthly Archives: December 2023

Holiday Sweets with Pet Milk 

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By Anthony Murisco, Public Engagement Librarian 
 
Despite the name, Pet Milk isn’t for your furry friends! Formerly the Helvetia Milk Condensing Company, the company broke ground in Highland, Illinois in 1885. For years, they would be the standard for canned and condensed milk. If their own words are to be believed, they may have even given whole milk a run for their money.  

Pet Milk’s messaging made them seem like the All-American brand of milk. They were there when future President Teddy Roosevelt fought alongside other soldiers in the Spanish-American War. The canned beverage was available for our troops overseas during both great wars. What was more American than providing nourishment and daily vitamins for these heroes? When they returned, seeing the brand name in their cupboard or on the store shelves could trigger strength and loyalty. Milk was the drink of choice with the average American’s dinner. It’s no wonder that the brand had garnered such popularity! 

The 1932 Pet Cookbook comes after two huge American events; the end of World War I and the Great Depression. In their introduction, Pet Milk boasts of “a valuable new quality,” the addition of vitamin D. An essential vitamin, it prevents rickets in children. Despite this priceless addition, the company reminds readers—in big font—that; “the cost of Pet Milk has not been increased because of the extra sunshine vitamin D it now contains.” As Americans struggle amidst an economic downfall, the values of an American company remain true to their customers.  

The cookbook is a masterpiece of marketing and nutrition. Each recipe inside specifically calls for Pet Milk. This was done not only because they put out the recipe book, they assure you, but because their product is unlike other kinds of milk, including “ordinary whole” milk. With milk being “one of the most important of all our items of food,” or even “the most nearly perfect food,” you want to be sure you are choosing the right kind! The vitamins contained in a serving of Pet Milk span the alphabet. This isn’t the case with any other milk, they claimed. The company speaks of the importance of “irradiated” milk: using ultra-violet rays to provide an extra dose of Vitamin D.  

The company claims that typical whole cow’s milk could vary in taste, while Pet Milk’s provides uniform taste. For that reason, they believe it should be the standard to use in recipes. Don’t believe their words? Pet Milk boasts of the “melt-in-your-mouth texture” that stems from making candy with their product and tells you why. The photomicrograph on the left shows fewer numbers and larger crystals when making candy with regular milk. The image on the right shows what happens when you make candy with Pet Milk. Smaller crystals, and more of them, results in an eruption of flavor for your taste buds. The company was so confident in their science that it appeared almost verbatim two years later in a holiday- themed recipe book.  

Candies may be one of the most “desirable” gifts for your “holiday entertaining.” It’s not just for the younger ones! “Sweet-toothed” adults also appreciate getting treats during the holiday season. Brand loyalty is important here, Pet says. Your family will taste the difference when you make your holiday sweets with Pet Milk. And of course, you’re providing them with all the added nutrients you’ve come to expect!  

Any of these recipes featured can be replicated today. Pet Milk may not have the panache it once had but it is still available. Other brands of condensed milk can also be substituted. We cannot confirm or deny whether the lack of “flavor crystals” will impact the taste. You might want to make a couple batches just in case….  

If you can somehow manage to save some of these delicious candies for gifting, you’ll want to dress them up a bit. Pet Milk provides some suggestions for how you’ll want to give these out. Head over to your local “ten-cent store” for various containers to put them in. You can get creative here. For an added look, “flowers” made of cellophane-wrapped candies can be draped on top.  

From all of us at the New York Academy of Medicine Library, we wish you a happy and healthy holiday season. Seasons’ eatings!  

References:  
“Our History,” PET Milk, https://www.petmilk.com/history, accessed December 15, 2023. 

Pet Milk Company. Candies. St. Louis, Mo.: Pet Milk Co., 1934. 
 
Pet Milk Company. The Pet cookbook: 700 cost-saving recipes for better food / tested and approved by Good Housekeeping Institute. St. Louis, Mo.: Pet Milk Co., 1932.  

Combatting Tuberculosis in America After its Microbial Discovery 

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By Sean Purcell, The Media School, Indiana University-Bloomington and the Library’s 2023 Helfand Fellow 

Mr. Purcell completed his Fellowship residency in the summer of 2023 and will present his research by Zoom on Thursday, December 7 at 4 p.m. (EST). To attend his talk, “A Portrait of Tuberculosis (as a Young Microbe): Representing Consumption at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” register through NYAM’s Events page. 

I spent a month over the spring and summer looking through the New York Academy of Medicine Library collections, working towards a mixed methods dissertation, titled The Tuberculosis Specimen: The Dying Body and its Use in the War Against the “Great White Plague.” I came to the library with an interest in the visual culture surrounding tuberculosis at the turn of the twentieth century, and in my research, I have cast a wide net, looking at an array of images, from doctors’ portraits to children at play, from histological samples to photographs of wet specimens. 

The turn of the twentieth century saw major shifts in the public, professional, and governmental interventions against tuberculosis. Robert Koch’s 1882 essay on the microbial cause of the disease led to a broad shift in how medical professionals and the lay public understood and combatted the disease. Koch had figured out a process to isolate the bacteria in laboratory animals and used a series of chemical baths to stain Mycobacterium tuberculosis a bright blue (fig. 1). Seeing the bacteria clear as day under the microscope helped move germ theory forward, and forced doctors and health worker to reconsider how to treat a disease that was, prior to Koch’s essay, considered a constitutional malady. The period after Koch’s essay saw the rise of public health interventions against the disease and the popularization of the tuberculosis sanatorium. 

Figure 1. An illustration of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. From Aetiology of Tuberculosis, 1890, Robert Koch.  

The most influential figure in the burgeoning sanatorium movement was Edward Livingston Trudeau. A doctor who had sought a cure for his own tuberculosis in upstate New York, Trudeau built his own laboratory and sanatorium, the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium, in 1880 (figs. 2 & 3). This institution became a central fixture in the decades to come, as it was equipped with research facilities, and published its public-facing journal for tuberculous patients, The Journal of Outdoor Life.  

Figure 2. The most reproduced image from the Adirondack Sanatorium, showing the first cottage where patients were treated. From A history of the National Tuberculosis Association; the anti-tuberculosis movement in the United States, 1921, Adolphus S. Knopf.  
Figure 3. A view of the facilities at Trudeau’s Adirondack Sanatorium. From A history of the National Tuberculosis Association; the anti-tuberculosis movement in the United States, 1921, Adolphus S. Knopf. 

While Trudeau’s sanatorium was the most prominent institution, it was far from the only one. Many for-profit institutions opened their doors during this period, in addition to the development of publicly funded sanitaria in certain states. Assisting the larger, long-term treatment facilities, some cities and hospitals adopted a dispensary system, where tuberculous patients could get assistance and medicine within an urban space.  

These dispensaries served patients, but also sought to teach the urban poor lessons on hygiene. Doctors and public health workers reeled at the dusty, ill kept living conditions of the urban poor, and argued that improper sputum management, poor ventilation, and dark living conditions were contributing to tuberculosis infections in American cities (figs. 4 & 5). While ideas regarding the “healing air” of a specific environment were becoming out of fashion for tuberculosis practitioners in the early 1900’s, most doctors argued that tuberculous patients should get away from the polluted and uncirculated air common to urban environments (figs. 6 & 7).  

Figure 4. An exhibit showing the unhealthy living conditions of the working poor. The caption reads: “Type of tenement house room as first seen by Department of Health Nurse. Man is ill with Tuberculosis. Baby is ill with Scarlet Fever. Others are in danger of infection. Family is destitute.” From “Album of photographs of exhibits by various departments of the City of New York, Royal S. Copeland, Commissioner, and various health agencies,” 1921.  
Figure 5. An exhibit showing the interventions of a public health nurse. The caption reads: “Same room after nurse has performed her duties. Man has been removed to Sanatorium. The baby has been removed to hospital. Financial aid has been obtained and landlord has been induced to paint room. Instruction has been given to mother in personal hygiene, cleaning up, order, proper diet.” From “Album of photographs of exhibits by various departments of the City of New York, Royal S. Copeland, Commissioner, and various health agencies,” 1921. 
Figure 6. A day camp run by Bellevue Hospital where patients could spend time outdoors on a boat. From New York City’s Institutions for the Tuberculous: Clinics, Sanatoria, Preventoria, Day Camps and other Agencies, 1926, The Tuberculosis Sanatorium Conference of Metropolitan New York. 
Figure 7. Tuberculous patients were instructed to spend as much time as possible outside, no matter the weather. From Pulmonary tuberculosis, its modern and specialized treatment, 1907, Albert Philip Francine.  

The fight against tuberculosis in this period saw a collection of different interventions, and the New York Academy of Medicine’s library offers a unique glimpse into the work of scientists and medical professionals who were trying to fight the disease. My time here as a Helfand fellow has been a boon to this research because of the library’s extensive collections, much of which has not been digitized. 
 
References:  
Feldberg, Georgina D. Disease and Class: Tuberculosis and the Shaping of Modern North American Society. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995). 

Koch, Robert. “Aetiology of Tuberculosis.” Translated by T. Saure. Transactions of the Massachusetts Medical Association. (New York: William R. Jenkins, 1890).  

Koch, Robert. “Die Ätiologie der Tuberculose.” In Gesammelte Werke von Robert Koch, 1:446–54, 467–565. (Leipzig: Verlag Von Georg Thieme, 1912).