DAIRY ME;e;TING. I79 



the importance of excluding dirt, which is laden with such bac- 

 teria, from our milk. Adults, owing to their greater resistance 

 powers are not so much affected by these intestinal bacteria. 

 Here we must also remember that milk forms the main food not 

 of well and grown persons but of children and of the sick; the 

 very ones who are least able to contend successfully with these 

 outside intestinal invaders. 



Naturally the dried filth from the cow's body contributes to 

 this same kind of contamination, and probably plays an even 

 greater part when the cows are kept in the filthy condition they 

 are sometimes found in. 



The stable dust may also contain bacteria from hay and straw. 

 These will give rise to no serious diseases in the users of the 

 milk, but they will hasten the souring of the milk, and often will 

 give rise to growths that will give a taste to the milk. Thus this 

 kind of dust in the stable is out of place as much as the other 

 kinds, if looked at from a financial standpoint. 



Here also enter the lactic acid forming germs, which are al- 

 ways present about a barn or stable or dairy, and which it is 

 impossible to expect to entirely exclude. These are arch ene- 

 mies of the dairyman as, otherwise, he could keep his milk 

 sweet indefinitely. No stable or stable dust is without these 

 invaders who, while they do not affect the sanitary qualities of 

 the milk, affect the pocket of the producer. 



And now we come to the milker and the handler of milk in 

 the dairy room. Here enters another of the opportunities for 

 pollution of the milk by disease organisms, as well as from the 

 stable dirt that may adhere to the hands and clothes of the milk- 

 er. These latter are the same as have been mentioned in the 

 pievious sections. Here is one of the places where typhoid and 

 diphtheria and scarlet fever germs get into our milk. Milk as 

 it comes from the cow never contains these germs. They al- 

 ways enter from the outside after the milk has left the cow. A 

 person who has been in attendance on a sick person, or has 

 handled the food, dishes or clothes of such a person cannot 

 work about the dairy room or milk without being a source of 

 danger to all who may later use the milk that he has touched. 

 Typhoid, diphtheria and scarlet fever epidemics without num- 

 ber emphasize this point with their deadly results. 



In the milk room, leaving out the employees as above men- 



