REASONS FOR DETERMINATION OF TOTAL COUNT 115 



might fairly be inferred that such milk is less likely to contain 

 pathogenic organisms then one produced by men of careless 

 and slovenly habits. Farmers who take a pride in their produce 

 are more naturally hable to prevent infection of the milk by 

 supervision of their employees, but even if this be not true, it 

 must be admitted that the conditions which tend to keep in 

 check the saprophytes also tend to minimise the relative 

 infectiveness, so that to this extent at least, must credit be 

 given to careful producers and dairymen. Other conditions 

 being equal, the total bacterial count is a measure of relative 

 infectiveness. This statement is supported by the work of 

 Delepine ^ on the toxicity of the Manchester milk supply. He 

 found that " mixed milk . . . showed an increase of virulence 

 on inoculation into guinea pigs in proportion to the mean 

 temperature in the shade in Manchester during the time the 

 specimen was kept." The results are given in Table XL VI, 

 all tuberculous specimens being excluded. 



Increased temperature and keeping period result in an 

 increased count so that the above statement can be reduced to 

 one stating that the virulence to guinea pigs was proportional 

 to the bacterial count. Further figures reported by Delepine 

 regarding the relative toxicity of cooled and uncooled milk 

 confirm this. 



Table XLVII 

 TOXICITY OF MILK (Delepine) 



No. of Samples. 



Percentage of Toxic 

 Samples. 



1896-1897. Unrefrigerated milk , 

 1898-1901 . Refrigerated milk . . 



141 



1782 



10.7 

 2.1 



Delepine states that *' the difference would probably have 

 been greater if the milk had been cooled immediately after 

 milking." 



