Death in the Milk Can, and how to Avoid it.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 119, 18 November 1896, Page 2

Death in the Milk Can, and how to Avoid it.

Ought we to boil oar milk ? This is an old question, and the correct answer is, of coarse, an affirmative- Everyone in theory should boil his milk ; no one who really cares for milk ever in practice does boil it. Boiled milk is horrid ; raw milk, if you like it at all, is excellent. No proof of the iniquity of the proceeding will deter the real milklover from drinking his milk in his own way ; nevertheless, since it is well to count the cost, it may he profitable for him to read the short article on this subject in the Nineteenth Century by Mrs Percy Frankland. He will then learn what a fearful beverage milk really is. Many evil things have been said at various times about alcohol, but the language applicable to alcohol altogether fails to do justice to milk. It contains on the average a million microbes to the cubic inch, which , means about sixteen millions to the glass. It is the favourite feedingground, among others, of the microbes of tuberculosis, scarlet and typhoid fever, and diphtheria. "The largest part of the tuberculosis which man obtains through his food," reported a Soyal Commission, "is by means of milk containing tuberculous matter." Its liability to contamination is immense. It may pass from a dirty cow, through dirty fingers, to a dirty pail in a dirty shed and go thence in a dirty can to a filthy railway station. When it reaches a town, the possibilities of microbious contamination are incalculable. Its career from the cow to the stomach of the human being is one leng process of microbe-collection. A learned German has estimated that Berlin alone consumes 3cwt of cow-dung daily with its milk. Moreover, since dairymaids notoriously suffer, beyond all other classes, from typhoid and diphtheria, the chances that the actively noxious bacilli of these diseases will, besides ordinary dirt, be conveyed to the drink* ers of raw milk amount almost to a certainty. If, like all sensible people, you hate boiled milk, what is you remedy ? The answer which Mrs Franklin gives in the Nineteenth Century is " Pasteurise." This, let us explain, does not involve a special inoculation of oneself for every glass. It is happily somewhat simpler. The process is usually described as a " Pasteurisation " of milk, and very perfect apparatus has now been provided in which milk is maintained at a temperature of from 154-156deg. Fahr., generally through the agency of steam. A special contrivance is also provided by means of which during the process the milk is kept in continual movement so that it does not acquire a burnt flavour ; the temperature is also prevented from rising to 158deg. Fahr., at which point the change in taste, which it is desirable to avoid, commences. By observing these precautions much of the popnlar objection raised to boiled milk is removed. It is extremely satisfactory to learn, on the authority of so careful an experimenter as Dr Bitter, that Pasteurisation in most approved apparatus for from twenty to thirty minutes kills with certainty all the disease germs, such as those of tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, (and ty« phoid, which are likely to be found in milk. A wise insurance company will add to the questions which it puts to would-be insurers, " Do you Pasteurise ?" If not, it can be proved by almost infallible statistics that you are a doomed being.—Westminster Gazette.