148 BACTERIA IN DAILY LIFE 



or above. Experiments showed that organisms 

 present in this pellicle or skin were capable of 

 retaining their vitality when exposed to a tem- 

 perature six degrees higher than that of the milk 

 beneath the membrane in which they were de- 

 stroyed. 



Objections to the use of boiled milk have been 

 frequently made on the grounds of its being more 

 difficult of digestion, and hence less wholesome 

 than the raw article. I may only point out that 

 in this, as in most other matters where opinions 

 may be made or unmade, and in consequence of 

 the facts available being scanty must be more 

 or less arbitrary in character, Dr. Duclaux, the 

 successor to Pasteur as Director of the Pasteur 

 Institute in Paris, has expressed himself as follows 

 in an article on " La digestibilite du lait sterilise." 

 After reviewing the various special researches 

 which have been made on the subject, he says : 



" Ceci nous amene a une conclusion qu'il faut bien 

 avoir le courage de tirer, c'est que ces etudes chimiques 

 sur la digestibilite du lait ne sont pas adequates a la 

 question a resoudre. ... En attendant, tenons-nous-en 

 a cette conclusion generate, que le lait pasteurise, chauffe 

 ou sterilise, est encore du lait, devant la science comme 

 devant la pratique, et que si son emploi presente parfois 

 des inconvenients, ceux-ci sont legers et amplement 

 compenses par les avantages." 



