Buyer protection
Donkey milk knowledge archive · Historical source
The donkey stable of the Paris foundling hospital: Parrot’s 1881 trial in an 1883 report
In January 1883 the Popular Science Monthly reported on a donkey stable at the Paris Hospice des Enfants-Assistés where sick infants drank directly from jennies. According to the report, 28 of 38 children fed this way survived.
- Author
- Unsigned editorial item (ed. Edward L. Youmans), based on the report of the paediatrician Jules Parrot (1829–1883)
- Work
- The Popular Science Monthly, vol. 22 (November 1882 – April 1883), January 1883 issue, section “Popular Miscellany”
- Passage
- Item “Ass’s Milk for Infants”, pp. 425–427, with the illustration “Ass’s Milk Nursery at the Hospital for Assisted Children, Paris” (p. 426)
- Time & place
- January 1883 (report on the trial from 1881) · Paris (report published in New York)
- Type of source
- Science magazine (short report)
In the original words
What the original says
M. Parrot, physician at the Hospital for Assisted Children in Paris, has recently made a report of the success which has attended the efforts he has made to introduce an improved system of alimentation into the nursery of that institution.
Dr Parrot, physician at the foundling hospital in Paris (Hospice des Enfants-Assistés), recently reported on the success of his efforts to introduce an improved feeding system in the institution’s nursery.
The infants were at first fed with goat's milk, but it was soon found that ass's milk was better for them; and they are now all fed with milk which they draw directly from the teat of the animal.
The infants were first fed with goat’s milk, but it was soon found [according to the report] that donkey milk suited them better; now all of them drink the milk directly from the animal’s teat.
Forty-two were nursed at the teat of the goat; eight recovered, thirty-four died. Thirty-eight were nursed at the teat of the ass; twenty-eight recovered, ten died.
Forty-two were suckled by goats: eight recovered and thirty-four died. Thirty-eight were suckled by jennies: twenty-eight recovered and ten died.
English rendering: our own translation by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, following the sense of the text.
Background
Who, when, what kind of text
The Hospice des Enfants-Assistés in Paris took in abandoned children and children in public care. Many infants were seriously ill on admission, among them with congenital syphilis. Wet nurses were not allowed to breastfeed them because of the risk of infection, and bottle feeding with cow’s milk, in this period before sterilisation, was often fatal. The paediatrician Jules Parrot therefore had a stable set up in the hospital garden in 1881.
The Popular Science Monthly, founded in New York in 1872, presented research to a broad public. The 1883 item is an English summary of Parrot’s report; it also names his colleague Stéphane Tarnier. The French text of the 1882 report is quoted verbatim in a Paris doctoral thesis of 1931, which we used for comparison.
Content
What the source reports about donkey milk
The item describes the procedure: the children were first put to goats, but soon to jennies, drinking directly from the teat. A nurse held one to three children to the animal at the same time. By then the stable had existed for about a year.
As results, the report gives 86 children over six months. Of six children given cow’s milk from the bottle, one survived; of 42 suckled by goats, eight; of 38 suckled by jennies, 28. The editors derive a recommendation for hospitals and explain it by the composition of donkey milk, which they say curdles more finely than goat’s milk.
At the end, the item takes up the legend that King Francis I brought donkey milk to France and mentions herds of asses that supplied the sick with milk in Paris and other cities. Mare’s milk, the text says, would also be suitable but is hard to obtain.
At a glance
Figures & facts from the source
Fact check
Recorded or just told?
The Paris donkey stable proved that donkey milk could save infants and was therefore introduced permanently.
The figures come from a short initial phase with few, seriously ill children and without comparable control groups. According to a Paris doctoral thesis of 1931, the stable proved laborious and expensive; around 1890, with the sterilisation of cow’s milk, it was given up.
Critical assessment
How reliable is this source?
Source value
A contemporary report in a respected magazine, verifiable page by page as a scan. It is, however, a translation and summary; its figures match Parrot’s French wording as quoted in the thesis by Venizelos (1931).
Limits of the figures
This was not a controlled study: the groups were small, not randomly formed and staggered in time. Parrot himself spoke of a trial period. Mortality was shockingly high in all groups by today’s standards.
Today’s assessment
The report documents a stopgap from medical history before sterilisation and antibiotics and cannot be applied to today. Donkey milk is not a substitute for breast milk or infant formula; infant feeding belongs in medical hands.
Our assessment
The Paris donkey stable is one of the most famous episodes in the history of donkey milk, yet it is often told without context. We are interested in how a report on a short trial with sick foundlings crossed the Atlantic – and in the fact that the same institution abolished the stable only a few years later.
References
Sources to check
- Primary sourcePopular Science Monthly, vol. 22 (January 1883), section “Popular Miscellany”, item “Ass’s Milk for Infants”, p. 425 (beginning), Wikisource transcription with page scan
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Popular_Science_Monthly_Volume_22.djvu/439 - SupplementaryContinuation on p. 426 with the illustration of the donkey nursery and the figures from Parrot’s report
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Popular_Science_Monthly_Volume_22.djvu/440 - SupplementaryDémètre-Jean Venizelos, Le lait de femme aux débiles dans les Nourriceries des Enfants-Assistés, thesis Paris 1931: quotes Parrot’s 1882 report in French and describes the later end of the donkey stable
https://archive.org/details/IA40152016_0019/page/n23/mode/1up
More sources and studies in the research archive. Summarised by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, as of November 2026.