THE MILK QUESTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 57, 4 September 1909, Page 9

THE MILK QUESTION.

A doubt about the reliability of the Government Analyst's tests of milk has been raised by Mr. Henry Bodley in S^nT m.-t Bodl ?y>\<"* "ft* to testify, to Dr. M Laurcn's impersonality in the conduct of analyses, and to further dispel becloudments I dismiss the higher analysis by means of muriatic acid or evaporation as unstable and unsatisfao * ft. correspondent quotes one oi tne recent analyses by Dr M'Laurm (totals, 12.7.7; fa{, 4.4? soUdt 7.97? added! water, not less than six per cent.), and cites Professor Decter for a declaration that milk of tho same specific gravity would" have been, diagnosed by the British Board 0* Health thus :—Total, 12.63; fat, 4.4; sohds, 8.23; added water, 3.2. "In the first case," states Mr. Bodley, "two opposing elements are calculated in oue sum, and then one of those opponna elements is worked out by centrifueal force, and its estimate deducted. In the second the opposing element is eliminated from the calculation in order to find the solids by themselves; *,hen the fat is found by centrifugal force and added to make the total." Tho point which Mr. Bodley desires to make ia tiiat fat upsets specific gravity the same a* water, only more so, and an «. cess of fat has to be allowed for which, is the result arrived at by the British method. He submits that it v possible for a milkman to be the victim of an iojustice under the present system of testing milk for added water.