340 ANNUAL RE^PORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



Tliis summei* in Western Massachusetts, I ate the best butter 1 

 have had foi' a long time. At home I often have great difficulty 

 in buying good creamery butter. It generally has a taste not pleas- 

 ant to me or my family. In Massachusetts, my brother told me, 

 there were State inspections of both dairies and creameries, and 

 that certain requireuicnis were insisted upon as to cleanliness. The 

 result is shown in the Massachusetts butter, while we have little 

 required inspection of dairies or creameries in this State, and we 

 have a whole lot of very poor butter. • 



There are all degrees of cleanliness, as well as of dirtiness. My 

 thought is that most people mean to be clean, but do not know how. 

 Thus, most peoi>le believe that soap and water will cleanse the 

 hands, but these will not nearly do it. Soap, warm water and a 

 nail brush, used each time before and after milking, will not suffi- 

 ciently cleanse the hands, so that absolutely pure milk and butter 

 may be produced. No surgeon, worthy of the name, would to-day 

 perform a serious operation without using water, soap, a nail brush, 

 and some chemical, or more than one chemical, to cleanse his 

 hands, and many surgeons, despairing of getting the hands clean, 

 now uniformly operate wearing gloves, which have been boiled, 

 baked or soaked in chemicals, or otherwise made chemically clean. 



It is largely because the hands are not clean that milk spoils 

 for the dairyman and is returned to him by the dealer. It is because 

 the backets, pans and cans are not chemically clean, that other 

 milk spoils. Still other milk is spoiled because the room and the 

 vessels at the creamery are not chemically clean. A little hot water 

 and a dirty cloth will never ceanse dairy utensils as they should 

 be cleansed. Much hot water is needed even to wash a few vessels, 

 and these should then be rinsed in scalding water, or better, 

 steamed, and then exposed to fresh air and sunlight as long as pos- 

 sible before being used again. The dealers in the city should be 

 required to wash and steam the milk cans before returning them to 

 the farm. 



It is because the hands of the nurse are not chemically clean 

 that typhoid fever and other diseases are spread through the house- 

 hold where they have once gained admission. A physician with 

 dirty hands is a very dangerous person to admit to your home, 

 for he handles all manner of diseases; but to the credit of the pro- 

 fession, they now generally know the importance of clean hands 

 and clean clothes. 



Another hard place to convince the people of the importance of 

 chemical cleanliness is in relation to the drinking water. Almost 

 every farmer will get angry if you say his drinking water is impure, 

 yet very many farm wells and springs and most small streams of 

 the farm are polluted to the extent that they may almost at any 

 time cause trouble in the family. Now, drinking water, life Caesar's 

 wife, should always be above suspicion. It can only be kept so 

 through eternal vigilance. Water that contains the least trace of 

 sewage or of human waste is absolutely unfit for human ingestion 

 until it has been purified. Some other peoples seem to know this 

 better than we do. The Chinese drink only boiled water or tea 



