178 AGRICUI^TURE OF MAINE). 



and in the cow's own calves. I pass thus briefly over the ques- 

 tion of milk secreted by cows with unhealthy udders, as none of 

 us claims that it should be used for dairy purposes. 



We have now gotten our milk out of the udder of a healthy 

 cow, and into the air, and we find it free from any real bacterial 

 trouble or danger. But now its troubles begin. First, it is ex- 

 posed to the dust of the stable, which we have seen consists 

 largely of dried manure and urine from the floor. The cow 

 also is not a particularly cleanly animal, and the same materials 

 that compose the floor dust will be found, in a greater or less 

 degree, dried upon her flanks, belly and tail. If the cow is 

 not brushed and the udder washed every motion of the cow or 

 milker brings down a rain of this germ-laden dust, and the 

 swishing of the cow's tail does not lessen the trouble. No mat- 

 ter how clean a cow may be the tail will always cause trouble if 

 left to itself, and there is no remedy so good as a rope and a 

 square knot. 



The dried manure and urine dust are rich in organic material, 

 and are loaded with bacteria from the intestines and urinary 

 passages of the cow, which thrive and multiply on the organic 

 matter thus given them. With this solid dirt they enter the 

 milk and there continue to multiply. When we drink such milk 

 we drink with it the former inhabitants of the cow's intestines. 

 Even if the cow has no intestinal disease the thought of using 

 such milk is not pleasant ; nor does it become more so when we 

 remember that the cow may be throwing off tubercule bacilli in 

 the excrement before any signs of the disease appear elsewhere. 

 The addition of these to a milk is certainly no advantage. All 

 of these bacteria, when taken into the stomach and intestines of 

 an infant may set up that terrible series of infantile diarrheal 

 diseases, that reap such a frightful harvest of children. 



Statistics show that one-half of the deaths of children under 

 one year of age is due to infantile diarrhea. The deaths of 

 breast fed children under one year from the same diseases are 

 not over 5%. Since the introduction of pure milk laws, and 

 their rigid enforcement in the District of Columbia the death- 

 rate of children under one year of age from all causes has drop- 

 ped from 27% to 18%, a decrease of 33%. When we remem- 

 ber these facts, and the additional fact that the principle food 

 of such children must of necessity be milk, we begin to realize 



