THE RESULTS OF BACTERIAL COUNTS IN MILK 501 



gained in most of the larger cities shows the bacterial content of 

 market milk to be seldom below 50,000 to 100,000 per c.c., but it 

 is often greater, varying between 1,000,000 to 30,000,000; indeed, 

 not infrequently, even from 100,000,000 to 150,000,000 have been 

 found, and such milk may not be noticeably tainted. . . . It is 

 known that sour milk has no harmful effect on healthy people. But 

 it is -different with those suffering with catarrh of the stomach, and 

 even with small children. . . . The number of bacteria in milk 

 does not give us a safe criterion in this connection, but the degree of 

 acidity furnishes a reliable guide." 



Sommerfeld's Manual on Milk contains the laws governing the 

 milk supply of the German Empire and of a number of the states 

 forming it, as well as the ordinances, rules, and regulations of two 

 hundred cities. Yet not a word is found anywhere in them about a 

 limit of a permissible bacterial count, while inspections of the cows and 

 dairies by competent veterinarians and detailed rules as to cleanli- 

 ness, handling, cooling, bottling, labelling, and selling of the milk are 

 amply provided. 



It is quite evident that there should be no ironclad rule as to the 

 number of bacteria permissible in ordinary market milk. No com- 

 petent investigator has ever claimed that a milk containing 1,000,000 

 bacteria, provided that they are of the ordinary saprophytic kind, 

 normally found in milk, is unwholesome to older children or adults, 

 and it has not even been shown that such a milk is unwholesome to 

 infants. It is, of course, different with the dirty milk containing many 

 millions of bacteria as sold in summer in large cities throughout the 

 world. If it cannot be shown that every milk containing 1,000,000 

 bacteria is unwholesome to man, why should there be an ordinance 

 condemning such milk? The health authorities of communities 

 should make bacterial counts of milk regularly, because high counts 

 often indicate improper handling, unclean dairies, or cows sick from 

 udder affections. The knowledge gained from bacterial counts should 

 be used to discover such unhygienic conditions, and they should be 

 corrected. But to condemn a milk solely upon the ground that it 

 contains a certain number of bacteria without any further informa- 

 tion about it is an inequitable, unjust measure which may lead to 

 the unnecessary destruction of a wholesome food. Metchnikoff and 

 other investigators have for several years advocated the use of milk 

 soured by lactic-acid bacteria as one of the best means to prevent 

 unwholesome fermentations in the human intestines and as one of the 

 most important means to prolong human life. Cultures of lactic-acid 

 bacteria have also been used as sprays in certain pathologic condi- 

 tions of the nasopharyngeal mucous membranes. So milk containing 

 millions of lactic-acid bacteria and a corresponding amount of lactic 

 acid is not only not unwholesome, but probably (at least, according 

 to Metchnikoff and his followers) a food particularly well adapted to 

 promote longevity. Milk, however, which has already attained a 



