THE MILK CONTRACTOR 271 



We do not want to contract typhoid, diphtheria, septic sore throat or other 

 epidemic diseases ourselves through the use of milk, nor do we want others 

 to. The cost of controlling outbreaks of epidemic disease, and the 

 financial loss resulting from the destruction of human life and to business 

 when such epidemics do occur, dispose the tax payers to regard with favor 

 the use of such a simple means as pasteurization, to minimize the dangers 

 from communicable diseases. 



Likewise, the stock owner is slowly learning that he cannot afford to 

 take the risk of bringing back to his farm from the creamery and cheese 

 factory skim-milk and whey that are likely to contain the germs of 

 tuberculosis and contagious abortion or possibly the virus of foot-and- 

 mouth disease or that may even be infected with germs of human disease 

 which may bring some member of his family low. 



Pasteurization Lowers the Infantile Morbidity Rate. Second, pas- 

 teurization by reducing the number of germs in milk lowers the infantile 

 morbidity and mortality rates. It seems to be true that the intestines 

 of small children are tender and unable to cope with large numbers of 

 bacteria so that, as a result of drinking milk of high bacterial content, 

 babies are prone, especially in hot weather, to develop diarrheal disorders 

 that are often fatal. 



Pasteurization Checks Bacterial Changes in Milk. Third, pasteuriza- 

 tion checks bacterial changes in milk that may result in the formation of 

 toxins and other products of bacterial decomposition that have not been 

 isolated but which nevertheless are believed to exist and to be harmful. 



Pasteurization Delays the Souring of Milk. Fourth, by partially 

 destroying the lactic acid bacteria and other germs the keeping quality 

 of milk is improved a result desired by both the vender and purchaser 

 of milk. 



Uninspected Milk Should be Pasteurized. Fifth, under present condi- 

 tions much uninspected and even dirty milk is bound to be sold, and it 

 is better that the public be afforded the protection that pasteurization 

 gives than that it hazard all the dangers that such raw milk may conceal. 



Heating Milk Unnatural. The objections that have been made to 

 pasteurization are many; some of them were so grave as to raise serious 

 doubts as to whether the process could be unreservedly commended while 

 others, though they perhaps caused some hesitation about accepting it, 

 were not so important. In the first place, it was obvious that the heating 

 of milk was not nature's way; young animals took milk without its being 

 heated, therefore some questioned why man should not. In reality the 

 comparison is not a true one for the young calf applies its mouth to the teat 

 and so gets its milk directly from the udder without contamination from 

 external sources, whereas the milk that man gets, is drawn into an open 

 vessel and is usually contaminated over and over again before it is used. 

 So man getting the milk under unnatural conditions is justified in taking 



