SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR-BOOK — PART V. 389 



the columns are sometimes disgraced by production of paid correspon- 

 dents who dwell In realms of imagination rather than work in fields of 

 every day fact. While this is all true it is true that the rural press is 

 becoming more and more a leader, the leader in agricultural problems. 

 No dairyman, therefore, has a right to neglect this source or helpful sug- 

 gestions. This may sound like cant but I must lay especial emphasis on 

 the matter because, in my own state, the reading of papers and bulletins 

 divides the sheep from the goats with hardly a mistake. 



The consumer of milk or its products has a right to assume that the 

 milk producer is a reader and knows the things taught bj'' current litera- 

 ture. This is a business proposition and not a theoretical statement. 

 No milk is fit to use that has not some of the brains of the producer 

 mixed with it. 



Next, the milk must be produced from sound cows. The old testa- 

 ment forbade the Jews to taste the blood of any animal. When we use 

 milk we are therefore approaching forbidden ground with nothing but 

 a membrance between the blood and the milk. If the blood or the body 

 generally be tainted by disease the milk cannot be good. The time has 

 come to take the bold and frank stand that no milk shall be received at 

 creamery or skimming station, at cheese factory or city milk depot, that 

 is not produced by cows shown to be free from tuberculosis by the tuber- 

 culin test. ■ It is far from being demonstrated that consumption is usually 

 taken into the human system from the milk, whether the patient be a 

 child or a grown person. It is true that the doctors suspect a tuber- 

 cular origin to every case of meningitis or summer diarrhoea that is 

 found among the children of their practice, but the most oblservant among 

 scientists studying pathological questions now agree that there is a pos- 

 sibility if not a probability that tuberculous germs gain access to their 

 human victims more often through the nose than through the mouth. Some 

 cdreless adult, afflicted with tuberculosis of the lungs, drops some of the 

 sputum on the carpet. It dries there and either the broom or the movement 

 of the creeping child stirs up the dust containing the still living germs, 

 which, mixed with the air, is taken into the lungs, still vascular and 

 receptive and through those tender membranes gain access to the lung 

 tissue itself there to start the infection sure to be fatal unless the child is 

 unusually healthj- and well cared for. I am not willing to admit, there- 

 fore, that the cow and her owner are alone responsible for the rapid 

 spread of the white plague. It is enough for us dairymen to know 

 that there is a possibility of the transmission of consumption from cows 

 to babies to compel us to see to it that there are no tuberculous cows in 

 our herds. It is both impolitic and wicked to risk the lives of others 

 in the attempt to save animals which are. at the same time, a source of 

 danger to all the other animals on the farm. It is a penny wise and 

 pound foolish policy. 



Time does net permit me to quote at length the results of the interest- 

 ing studies made by Doctor Parke and his colleague under the auspices 

 of the Rockefeller Institute. Certainly no more interesting and signifi- 

 cant piece of work has been done lately. They show that where they have 

 had an opportunity to observe the behavior of a large number of infants, 



