34 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



lively new science. It is a science which has thrown a flood of 

 light into many hitherto dark places, and has revolutionized a 

 number of lines of work — notably surgery. The old time surgeon 

 would perform minor operations with his jackknife — if he were 

 very clean, he would wipe it on his pocket-handkerchief. Such 

 things would not be tolerated today. As the search light of the 

 bacteriologist is turned on to dairying, we see why the word clean 

 is so misunderstood, why conditions that existed unnoticed a few 

 years ago are condemned today, and that dirty milk produces worse 

 results than giving a bad flavor to butter. 



What has this knowledge of bacteria shown us in regard to 

 the milk supply of our towns and cities? 



First, it is now an established fact that tuberculosis can be 

 conveyed through milk from the bovine to the human race. This 

 was the unanimous conviction of the delegates to the recent Inter- 

 national Tuberculosis Congress in Washington, D. C, as shown 

 by their vote. 



Second, it is now absolutely proven that typhoid and scarlet 

 fever and some other ailments are due to specific germs, and that 

 many epidemics of these diseases have been caused by the scatter- 

 ing of the germs through a community, in the milk supply. 



Third, and by far the most important of all, it is now known 

 that the presence in milk of excessive numbers of bacteria even 

 if they are not specific disease germs, may cause derangements in 

 the digestive tract, specially of infants and invalids. It is 

 proven that much of the mortality of babies is caused by undue 

 Quantities of bacteria in the milk they consume. "Often the action 

 of this milk with infants is not that of milk but of poison" says 

 Dr. Jordan, Boston's milk inspector. One-third of all the babies 

 who are born, die before they are five years old, says one authority, 

 and Dr. Darlington estimates that one-fourth of the entire death 

 rate is due to the bowel and stomach diseases of infants. Vital 

 statistics of Rochester, N. Y., showed an average for nine years 

 of 222 deaths per year, during July and August, of children under 

 five years of age. The introduction of a better milk supply cut 

 the number down to 89. At the infant asylum on Randall's Island, 

 N. Y., the death rate before attention was called to the milk supply 

 was 40 per cent; with better milk the rate was reduced to 16 per 

 cent. Hence the question you have asked me to discuss is im- 

 portant as a dairy problem, but it is also one of broad economic 

 and social concern. McClure's Magazine for December says: 

 "Barring the anti-tuberculosis movement, there is no line of hy- 



