Milk Precautions.

Otago Witness, Issue 2690, 4 October 1905, Page 76

Milk Precautions.

Tbe question of milk and typhoid i 3 for ever cropp'ng up, and a case or two of lecent interest might be taken as a warning by housewives. The consumer of milk had responsibilities a 3 well as the dairyman, and there are many households in whioh simple precautions, bo necessary where much milk is consumed, are quite neglected.

Milk— most espacially milk for nursery use — ought at all seasons to be boiled be fere it leaves the kitchen. There are many families virhers the- little omes drink milk just as it has been delivered from the dairy. It may be absolutely pure, and it may not. If germs of any disease infect it. there they are— swallowed just in the condition in which they are most dangerous. We deem it highly risky to drink unfiltered and unboiled water; yet milk, which has the peculiar quality of attracting all and every germ with which it comes in contact, we consume without taking a-ny such precautions.

Nothing in a house should be kept more scrupulously pure and clean than the vessel jn which milk is kept. White milk jugs should be scalded out as often as used, and the evening's milk should never be mixed with that of the morning. If servants are not watched they will often add the milk brought in the afternoon to a jug which contains some left from the early morning lelivory. Another common practice is to leave milk uncovered. In the sweetest larder the liquid is sure to absorb some foroign taint whioh certainly detracts fiom its purity. Milk jugs or basins, then, should^ have covers. If a ti.mbler or jug of milk is kept in a bedrcom or nursery by night, it should be earelully covered. If you taste milk that has stood uncovered in a sleeping rooai some hours you wilJ> soon see the wisdom of th ; s.

Enamelled saucepans in which milk is boiled oi milk food cooked should be scoured of ton with common salt, and kept spotless; whilst directly a crack or broken place - comes in the enamel linings they should be discarded. In the&e days the value of milk as a food and its possibilities of danger if simple precautions of cleanliness are not taken- cannot be over-esti-mated. When you have well c!ia=en your dairy, see that there is no risk, of germ, generating in your own pantry.