FIFTEENTH MEETING. 25 



FIFTEENTH MEETING. 



Fifteenth Meeting, 23rd February, 1889, the President in 

 the chair. 



Donations and exchanges since last meeting, 29. 



Prof. Ellis read a paper on " Milk Analysis and Milk Stan- 

 dards," in the course of which he said that in the year 1874, 

 Wanklyn published " A Practical Treatise on Milk Analysis." 



In this little work he described the method which he used for the 

 analysis of milk, and published a number of analyses made by 

 himself of milk supplied to the London workhouses, and ten analyses 

 of milk known to be genuine ; and he there asserted that cow's 

 milk never contains less than 11.5 per cent, of solids, and seldom so 

 little as 12 per cent. Of these solids, the fat was the most variable. 

 The solids not fat were veiy constant, and never fell below 9.2 per 

 cent. In the same year the Society of Public Analysts was organized, 

 and adopted the following " limits " for milk : — " Milk shall not con- 

 tain less than 9.0 per cent, of solids and fats, and not less than 2.5 

 per cent, of butter fat. The method of Wanklyn came into general 

 use in England, but was not adopted by the Somei'set House authori- 

 ties, nor did the}' commit themselves to the Society's limits. In 

 course of time improved methods of extracting the fat were intro- 

 duced, and it became evident that Wanklyn's method failed to get out 

 all the fat. The last method of fat extraction is Mr. Adam's paper 

 ■method, which has been adopted by the Society of Public Analysts 

 and by the Chemists of the United States Agricultural Department 

 at Washington. In this method the milk is sucked up by blotting 

 paper, dried :ind extracted by ether in a special apparatus contrived 

 for the purpose by Saxblet. The use of asbestos instead of paper has 

 been recommended by Mr. Macfarlane, the chief analyst at Ottawa, 

 and has been adopted as an alternative method by the Washington 

 authorities. The more complete extraction of fat by these methods 

 lowers the percentage of solids not fat, and the Society of Public 

 Analysts has now fixed their limit at 8.5 per cent, of solids, not fat. 

 From the results of a number of analyses of the milk of herds of 

 ■cows in Canada, undertaken by authority of the Government in the 



