MILK DANGERS AND REMEDIES 147 



Wiirzburg never once showed a failure, all the 

 samples tested being germ-free. 



Some supervision is, therefore, necessary in the 

 case of these milk-sterilising companies to ensure 

 that the public is obtaining what it is paying for, 

 as it has been shown by Professor Fliigge, a world- 

 renowned authority on the subject of milk and its 

 sterilisation, that the bacteria left over in these 

 so-called sterilised milk samples are by no means 

 invariably a harmless residue, but, on the contrary, 

 may consist of individuals which he has gathered 

 together in a class under the heading of poisonous 

 peptonising bacteria, and which owe this un- 

 fortunate designation to the rapidity and energy 

 with which they can engender the putrefaction 

 of albumen. As indicating how essential it is 

 that every detail in the sterilisation of milk should 

 be adequately assessed, I may mention a paper 

 recently published by H. L. Russell and E. G. 

 Hastings, of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station in the United States, on the import- 

 ance of Pasteurising milk in closed rather than in 

 open vessels, bacteria having been found more 

 resistant in milk when heated in contact with the 

 air than in closed vessels, this variation being 

 attributed to the formation of a surface pellicle, 

 which readily forms on milk when heated in open 

 vessels to a temperature of about 60 Centigrade 



