66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE PROBLEM OF CITY MILK SUPPLIES 



By p. G. HEINBMANN, Ph.D. 

 the university of chicago 



MILK and various dairy products have been used by the human 

 race for ages. There is evidence to show that at least 50,000 

 years have elapsed, probably a much longer period, since man began to 

 use cow's milk for his own purposes. Savages who have no historical 

 records consume milk — sweet, sour and fermented — to a large extent 

 and have made use of the preservative properties of sour milk for keep- 

 ing meat from putrefaction. The scriptures mention the fact that 

 milk, sour milk and butter were common articles of food among the 

 Hebrews. The ancient Greeks and Romans used milk and cheese and 

 among the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon, German and Scandinavian 

 tribes the dairy herd was an important asset. 



Perhaps the antiquity of the dairy industry is responsible for the 

 extreme conservatism practised. The methods of taking and handling 

 the raw material — milk — remain primitive to this day. Although form- 

 ing one of the most important and universal articles of food, of special 

 value in the feeding of infants, little progress has been made in that 

 part of the production of dairy products, which is the controlling one 

 from the public health standpoint, namely, the process of gathering the 

 milk and its treatment before it reaches the consumer, the dairy or the 

 creamery. 



The sciences of hygiene and bacteriology are of relatively recent 

 origin and with them came the knowledge that wholesomeness of food 

 as well as sanitary environment is for the most part a matter of cleanli- 

 ness. Now, few things are farther from cleanliness than the ordinary 

 manner of milk production. Even if we admit that " pigs is pigs," 

 milk is not always the same, and milks from different sources may vary 

 enormously. Who has not seen a barn, where cows, horses and pigs 

 are stalled under the same roof? Filth, cobwebs, dust, manure are 

 allowed to accumulate and at long intervals are shoveled to a place, 

 which is not far from the barn, where they dry out and are blown in the 

 form of dust into the barns. Ventilation in the barn is absent, screens 

 to keep out the disease-carrying flies are rare, light is admitted by small 

 windows and the cows are permitted to rest in their own filth, which 

 covers the hide, dries and is brushed or shaken into the milk wlien this 

 is drawn from the udder. The modern cow is covered with filth and 

 the owners ridicule the suggestion that cows deserve more care than 



