MILK DANGERS AND REMEDIES 131 



of these Lilliputians, what the microbial popula- 

 tion of less satisfactory samples may amount to 

 well-nigh baffles our powers of calculation. Pro- 

 fessor Russell writes : " If we compare the bacterial 

 flora of milk with that of sewage, a fluid that is 

 popularly, and rightly, supposed to be teeming 

 with germ life, it will almost always be observed 

 that milk when it is consumed is richer in bacteria 

 by far than the sewage of our large cities. Sedg- 

 wick, in his Report to the Massachusetts Board 

 of Health for 1890, found that the sewage of the 

 city of Lawrence contained at the lowest 100,000 

 germs, whilst the maximum number was less than 

 4,000,000 per cubic centimetre.* This range in 

 numbers is much less than is usually found in the 

 milk-supply of our large cities." 



Numerous researches have been carried out 

 during the last half-dozen years to try and 

 localise the origin of some of the principal dairy 

 troubles, with a view to their possible extinction, 

 or at least control. In the course of these in- 

 vestigations quite a number of the bacteria found 

 in milk have been successfully hunted down, and 

 their offences brought home to them. 



Thus, from so-called " bitter " milk a bacillus 



* American sewage, it must be noted, is usually weaker and 

 poorer in bacterial life than that of our country, by reason of the 

 greater amount of water with which it is diluted. 



