192 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



BACTERIA AND THE DAIRY. 



CHARLES E. MARSHALL. 



Bulletin 146. — Bacteriological Department. 



With such excellent treatises as Conn's bulletins and Russell's text- 

 book on "Dairy Bacteriology," there may be little need of any further 

 popular consideration. We wish, however, to give those farmers in the 

 State of Michigan who have not been fortunate enough to come in con- 

 tact with the above works, a brief and simple statement of the ques- 

 tions involved in dairy bacteriology at the present time and also an 

 explanation of some of the perplexing phenomena connected with the 

 handling of milk. 



Although it is but recently that bacteriology has interfered in a 

 practical way with dairymen, dairy bacteriology is as old as the science 

 itself. Boutron and Fremy in 1841 worked blindly upon lactic acid 

 fermentation, because bacteriology had not been born; yet to scan their 

 experiments, one cannot help feeling that they were cognizant of an 

 agent at work which they could not grasp. It is true we are inclined 

 to attribute all the glory to the great comprehensive mind of Pasteur, 

 and rightly so; but we must not forget how well the way was paved by 

 previous diligent and faithful scientists. Spallanzani (1776), Schulze 

 (1836) and* Schwann (1839) had to precede Pasteur; without tern Pas- 

 teur would have found many obstacles in the way of his progress. No 

 mind can apprehend the vast amount of good Pasteur did for France 

 and through France for the whole world. Millions of dollars were 

 invested in silk production, the ruin of which was threatened by the 

 silk worm disease practically eradicated by Pasteur. His insight into 

 the wine diseases also saved large sums of money to France. What 

 he has done in the saving of life is beyond pecuniary valuation. It was 

 he who instigated the movement in dairy bacteriology by his limited 

 work on some phases of milk fermentation. Since his activity there 

 has been a sprinkling of investigators in the matter of milk fermentation, 

 but our comparatively recent workers as Storch, Weigmann, Duclaux, 

 Adametz, Freudenreich, Conn and Russell represent the truly practical 

 and beneficial results which now belong to dairy bacteriology. 



