Microbes by the Million.

Hastings Standard, Issue 156, 27 October 1896, Page 3

Microbes by the Million.

Mrs Percy Frankland. the wife of Proft>sor Fraukland. who occupies the Chair of Chemistry at Mason College, has contributed to the Nineteenth Century an interesting article in which .she points out some of the dangers of employing raw miik as an article of diet. She declares that many ordinary samples of fresh milk contain as many as 1,600,000 microbes to the square inch, and that after standing for twenty-four hours in a t mperature of 55)deg Fahr, this number is increased to nr, .000,000. This means, roughly speaking, that a tumbler of milk that has stood in the pantry from morning to evening contains something like a thousand million bacteria. Of course, these germs are not all capable of producing disease, but in the great majority of cases, some of them are extremely dangerous to health. Scarlet fever, typhoid, diphtheria, tuberculosis and a whole host of gastric and intestinal disturbances are frequently traceable to the milk supply, and it is no wonder that many of the consumers are beginning to take alarm Mrs Frankland i n most em ph at ici 11 he r con dem 11 at ion of the use of raw milk. '• There is" she says, '• no longer any question as to the great and continual risk of spreading disease which is run by the consumption of unboiled milk.'' The remedy she suggests is " pasteurisation.'' which is simply keeping the milk at a temperature of from I~A to l."»lkleg. Fahv. for about twenty 111 in sites. This will kill all the disease germs, such as those of tuberculosis, diphtheria, and typhoid, that are likely to be found iu the milk, and will not impart the strong burnt flavour that results from actual boiling. " Pasteurisation " is largely practised in Leipzig and New York, with the result that there has been a very considerable reduction in the infant mortality in those cities during the hot summer months. The process is so simple that no housewife has any excuse for neglecting a precaution that uiav save many valuable lives.