The Lactose Maniac

So much stuff coming up from the basement of my parent's house.  This is archaeology plain and simple.  You dig through different layers trying to divine the importance of strange artifacts.  For instance, there was a considerable assortment of mint condition pamphlets from various public health agencies.  No surprise really, doctor's offices still have them.  But these were often from before my dad was actually in practice.  From the 1920's, 30's and 40's.  Did he save them as historical curios?  And how to explain the Lactose Maniac?

This dude....

Looks to me like he's enjoying himself a little more than you'd expect from a bottle of milk.  Even allowing for the fact that it was all whole milk then, none of this wimpy Skim or 2%.

There seemed to be quite the enthusiasm for milk running clear through these pamphlets.  Pregnant women for instance were supposed to slam down a quart and a half every day.  The pamphlet on Diet of the Expectant and Nursing Mother says right on the front:

Drink More Milk, Eat More Butter - For Your Health and Prosperity.

Guess you can see where the Lactose Maniac got his start down this path.   In utero.

We'll meet up with him again in a bit.  But first...

I'm putting a discrete thumb on this image.  It had, shall we say, Coppertone Ad qualities.  

But in this age of heightened awareness and of AI scraping every word and image off the internet, I'm not taking chances.

This tome is from 1935, and was printed by the Department of Labor.  (This was a 1943 reprint).  Hmmm, maybe the Good Ol' Days of child labor were not quite over?

The actual advice was pretty simplistic.  Wear good shoes - unlike this tyke on the nude beach - stand up straight, don't get rickets or scurvy.

Various exercises and play strategies are endorsed.  Some of them involving climbing on ladders and unsafe things!

Oh, and here's the Lactose Fiend a bit older.  Maybe middle school now, but he's still a two fisted milk drinker.  He's finished his glass while little Bitsy sitting next to him hasn't touched hers.

The motto on this one says: We strike at one of the roots of physical unfitness when we teach good food selection to all children whether they appear to be malnourished or not."

It comes out very strongly for school lunch programs.  In fact, it makes vague reference to a study being done where white rats were fed on the lunches kids brought to school.  One assumes the kids were as a replacement, given more nutritious fare, washed down with plenty of milk.  Oh, and the rats?  "Many of the rats failed to grow and some died as a result."  

By now you've started to detect a theme, no?  On the back of one of the pamphlets (The Public Health Nurse works with you to Protect your Family) is this revealing logo...........