342 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



All this, it seems to me, teaches us a lesson as to the milk 

 question, — the dangers from germs, the way to face the 

 danger, its seriousness, and the course to be adopted. 

 Within a few years wonderful advances in bacteriology have 

 been made, and facts which ought not to be disputed, con- 

 servatively stated, are these : It has been found that many 

 kinds of disease are caused by microscopic germs ; these 

 germs have been actually seen with powerful magnifying 

 glasses, and identified so as to be as well known to the 

 microscopist as is any human being to his neighbors and 

 friends ; milk has many characteristics that make it a medium 

 to which germs can readily gain access, and by which they 

 may be communicated to the human system ; there is an 

 abundance of authority for the assertion that, under condi- 

 tions which sometimes exist, milk may be, and probably is, 

 a medium for conveying tuberculosis. This cannot be denied 

 or disproved. There is an element of danger in the use of 

 milk. 



This danger, owing to circumstances hinted at above, but 

 which there is not space to amplify, has not been treated like 

 the dangers incident to railroad travel or the use of electric- 

 ity ; but it has been popularly discussed by extremists, — 

 those who have exaggerated the real relative danger, and 

 those who have belittled it. The trouble with some who 

 have discussed the possibility of germ contamination of milk 

 is that they have lost sight of the true relative position of 

 affairs. While with one eye they have looked through the 

 microscope at the bacillus and seen it greatly enlarged, they 

 have looked at remaining qualities of milk with the other 

 eye unaided ; hence they see the microscopic germ out of pro- 

 portion to the rest of the world. This has caused them to 

 tell truth, but in some instances to present it out of a proper 

 relation to other things. In attempting to refute this error, 

 other persons have carelessly but honestly gone to the other 

 extreme of denying the statements of the scientific observers, 

 declaring the whole germ theory to be a hoax and a humbug. 

 They have pointed out the well-known fact that people have 

 used milk in large quantities ever since history began ; that 

 the population of the world has steadily grown, and that the 

 average life of man has been increasing ; that tuberculosis is 



