490 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
quarter of a pound of best fillet of beef, being at the same time 
free from sugar and fat. 
All new Milk, whilst yet in the animal’s udder, is sterile as 
regards any noxious bacterial life; but when drawn, and ex- 
amined microscopically at its newest state, it always contains 
some leucocytes ; if these multiply to twenty or thirty in the 
field of a one-sixth objective, the Milk is to be suspected. 
Happily invention is already coming to the rescue, and a vacuum 
device for the milking of cows is obtaining a wide use. The 
air within the sterilized milk-can is first exhausted, whilst a 
flexible tube is then connected with the top of the can by one 
of its ends, and with the teats of the cow by four caps at the 
other end (stop-cocks being provided for working the appar- 
atus), when suction withdraws the Milk from the udder into 
the can, without the least access of air from first to last. The 
lower portion of each cup is glass, which permits the operator 
to watch the working of this device. 
Pure Milk should be white in colour, yet the customer has 
generally a notion that yellowness means richness. This effect 
can be produced easily, and without expense, by the accommo- 
dating milkman. He uses annatto, or turmeric, or saftron, 
knowing that a few drops of either will make the Milk as yellow 
as a canary, and without affecting its taste. But the latest and 
most favourite colouring is a coal-tar product (employed also for 
giving the lovely pink, orange, and violet hues seen in modern 
sweetmeats, and confectionery). This is called by the chemist 
sodium di-methyl-amido-azo-benzene-sulphonate, and is of a 
bright orange colour. What might happen, may well be asked, 
if one were to swallow this fearfully long and difficult name, 
as well as the sophisticated product it signifies? The colour of 
Milk yielded by Jersey cows is naturally yellow; likewise by 
cows newly turned out to grass; but the best and richest Milk 
is of a chalky white colour. Annatto (as employed sometimes 
for imparting a yellow appearance to the milk) is a dye procured 
from the seeds of the Arnatto tree of tropical America; it is, 
fortunately, harmless. In the Southern States there grows the 
Goat’s Rue (Galega officinalis), which is a remarkable milk- 
producer ; as such the plant is gathered, and cured for making 
an elixir. This increases the weight of lean persons, or of those 
who have lost flesh (apart from wasting progressive disease) 
more effectually even than cod-liver oil, being a powerful 
