atid the Cause of Epidemic Disorders. 119 



it blue ; it was therefore alkaline. The milk of two goats, 

 whose kids were ten months old at the time of the experi- 

 ment, was alkaline. Finally, two Merino sheep of pure 

 breed, taken from a flock of forty ewes, the one of which had 

 dropped her lamb two months before, and the other three, 

 supplied milk which also was alkaline. Here, then, we have 

 seven specimens of milk, taken from seven individuals be- 

 longing to three different species of animals, all of which were 

 alkaline. Does it therefore follow that milk always possesses 

 this property in its healthy state 1 We should be tempted to 

 draw this absolute conclusion from our own observations, and 

 from those analogous ones formerly made, which we have cited; 

 but, on the other hand, when we remember that chemists, 

 celebrated for their accuracy, have stated that they have esta- 

 blished the neutral state, and even the acidity of milk rohen first 

 drawn ; and that M. Lassaigne has found in the same animal, 

 whilst subject to a constant regimen of nourishment, that 

 the milk was first alkaline, and after a time became acid, the 

 Commission cannot consider that it has settled the question. It 

 will therefore only say that healthy milk appears to be usually 

 slightly alkaline, and that future observers must still determine 

 if there be circumstances in which the milk becomes acid, with- 

 out it being possible to recognise in the animal which produces 

 it, the slightest symptom of disease. It will be understood that 

 we speak only of milk at the moment it is drawn from an 

 animal in health ; for we know that disease or any sudden 

 agitation has made the milk acid. 



4:th, To those difficulties which arrest the chemist in the 

 accurate study of milk in its healthy and diseased state, and 

 on which we have already dwe.lt, we must add another, which 

 arises from a want of precise knowledge of the true composi- 

 tion of the morbid products which may be mixed with the 

 milk in the mammary organs ; of which pus is a good exam- 

 ple. If the observation of the morbid state of the organs in 

 which it is found, enables the physician to apply this applica- 

 tion without a doubt, it is very different with the chemist who 

 shall be required to recognise and demonstrate the presence 

 of pus in blood, milk, &c., because, for an indisputable demon- 

 stration, he must neither confine himself to a microscopic obser- 

 vation, nor to the phenomena produced by reagents upon sub- 



