CHAPTER IV 

 THE BACTERIAL TEST 



THE LABORATORY 



TESTING milk for bacteria does not require 

 the services of a college professor nor a lab- 

 oratory equipped with expensive apparatus. 



Any boy or girl with a high school education 

 can learn how to make tests of milk for the num- 

 bers of bacteria by the "plate method" after 

 six weeks' training. The laboratory operations 

 are simple and very easy to understand. Accu- 

 racy and speed are necessary to make such tests 

 available for the milk industry and for health 

 authorities. 



When such testing was done only in expen- 

 sive laboratories by college professors the cost 

 was too great to make such testing available 

 for milk dealers and dairy farmers and the health 

 authorities of small cities. 



But at the present time bacterial tests of milk 

 can be made by every milk dealer and by every 



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