632 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ties — grow in the milk and there give rise to certain poisonous prod- 

 ucts, and these, wlien taken into the stomach, produce the diarrhoeal 

 diseases referred to. 



The question of more importance is, however, as to the extent 

 of the danger from such causes. This question is much like the 

 famous one of how large is a piece of chalk. There is danger in 

 everything, even in drinking water and breathing air. Is the dan- 

 ger from milk so great as to suggest that we should give up our 

 habit of drinking milk as they have largely done in Europe, or is 

 this danger so slight that we can well afford to neglect it? We 

 can not avoid all sources of disease even if we would. To do this 

 we should need to shut ourselves up in a box, breathe nothing but 

 sterilized air, drink nothing but sterilized w^ater, and come in contact 

 with no other person, to say nothing of wearing sterilized clothes. 

 Such a method will produce physical weakness rather than vigor. 

 We have learned in the last few years that the proper way of avoid- 

 ing disease is rather by preparing ourselves to resist it rather than 

 try to avoid all contact with possible disease germs. The question 

 is significant, then, w'hether the danger from milk is so great that 

 we should use every means of avoiding it; or is it one of the slight 

 dangers which we may best class with the everyday incidents against 

 which our proper guard should be simply vigorous health? 



It is impossible to say how great is the liability of contracting 

 disease from milk. Sometimes the subject looms up before us in 

 gigantic proportions. When our papers are describing the occur- 

 rence of hundreds of cases of typhoid fever in a city, all traced to a 

 milk supply, the seriousness of the problem is very apparent, and 

 very likely we stop drinking milk for a season. But when, on the 

 other hand, we remember the millions of people that are drinking 

 milk daily without injury, and remember that our forefathers have 

 done the same, we grow graver and begin again our old custom. 

 No one can, indeed, pretend to say how great the danger is. That 

 it is greater than that from drinking water is pretty clear. That it 

 is less than that of riding in the cars is probably equally true. That 

 it is greater in a small community than a large one seems probable, 

 and that there is a greater likelihood of its being serious where the 

 milk comes from a single source than where it passes through the 

 hands of a milk-supply company appears to the author to be quite 

 sure. 



In his relation to this problem each person must decide for him- 

 self. We do not cease to ride in the cars because there is danger here, 

 nor do the innumerable accidents from bicycling deter us from this 

 pleasure. Ought we to give up milk because of an occasional in- 

 stance of disease? It might be possible to give advice to use milk 



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