340 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
16.—BACTERIOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN THE MILK 
FLORA OF AUSTRALIA. 
By R. T. Butt, M.D., BS., anp H. W. Poris; eae 
Durine the past twenty years our knowledge of bacteria in their 
associations with fermentations has assumed an importance, 
marvellous in its practical application, but commensurate with 
our advanced civilisation. 
The evolution of biology creates profound surprise in the 
minds of modern thinkers, not only with regard to the diagnosis 
and control of disease, but in its universal relationship to in- 
dustrial fermentations. The latter have been defined by a 
recent writer, Dr. Green, as the “decomposition of complex 
organic material into substances of simple composition by the 
agency either of protoplasm itself or of a secretion prepared by 
it.” (“The Soluble Ferments and Fermentations,” by J. 
Reynolds Green, Sc. D., F.R.S., Cambridge, 1899.) 
The haphazard and empirical methods of manufacture pur- 
sued for centuries in the production of bread, beer, wine, 
spirits, sugar, leather, tobacco, and dairy products are gradually 
being abandoned and replaced by the adoption of newly- 
developed systems based on fundamental scientific principles, 
with the result that these valuable industries are becoming 
more exact, profitable, and uniform. 
It is only recently the aid of economic science has been in- 
voked to assist dairymen in perfecting the processes requisite to 
secure high-class products. 
The help which bacteria can render our dairying industry is 
almost a new development disclosed by the researches of Pasteur, 
storch, Duclaux, Wiegmann, Adametz, Freudenreich, Russell, 
and others. 
Bacteriology has solved many problems linked with abnormal 
conditions in milk, such as the ripening, souring, or fermenta- 
tion of milk and cream, their decomposition or putrefaction ; 
the existence of ropiness or bitterness in milk, and many other 
phases familiar to those associated with the dairy industry. 
Investigation proves that bacteria are found in the “fore” 
milk from a healthy cow, and from that point we must keep 
continually in view the action of organic fermentations, their 
cause and effect. 
Our knowledge of the ubiquitous germ, its constant presence 
in air, water, and soil alike, is sufficient to warn us of the 
danger pure milk is subjected to before it is consumed as an 
article of food. 
The air of the cowshed, laden with imperceptible particles of 
bacteria-inhabited dust, the filth and dirt adherent to the cow’s 
body, udder, and teats, the constant swish of her tail, the 
milker’s dirty clothing and uncleansed hands, the slovenly- 
