394 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



more when I am ill. I object still more strongly to have my 

 children physicked in their milk or their bread and butter. It is 

 no consolation to me to know that the physic is not immediately 

 fatal or not even violently injurious. The practice is utterly un- 

 justifiable, except from the point of view of a dealer who wants 

 to make an extra profit, who wants to palm off a stale or ill-pre- 

 pared article upon the public." 



C. M. Aikman, M.A., D.Sc, in a book on milk, its 

 nature and composition, says, as to means of preventing 

 changes in milk : — 



The great agent is heat. Cleanliness is not a less valuable in- 

 strument, cleanliness in every way, — on the hands of the milker, 

 on the teats of the cow, in the milk pails and other receptacles 

 used for holding the milk, in the byre, etc. Immediately after 

 milking the milk should be cooled down ; the lower the tempera- 

 ture, the better. On the other hand, it ma} 7 be sterilized by 

 heating. The addition of chemicals, so-called " preservatives," 

 cannot be too strongly condemned. Even such comparatively 

 harmless preservatives as bicarbonate of soda, boracic acid, sali- 

 cylic acid and peroxide of hydrogen ought not to be used. Quite 

 recently, also, formalin, viz., a 40 per cent solution of formalde- 

 hyde, has been used with great success as a preservative. 



Dr. A. McGill, Bulletin 54, laboratory of the inland 

 revenue department of Ottawa, says : — 



It is true that we do not yet know enough of the physiological 

 action of formalin, salicylic acid, borax, etc., to enable us to say 

 just in what way and to what extent their presence in food is 

 harmful or dangerous ; but it is not unreasonable to suppose that 

 substances so effective in preventing putrefactive change should 

 interfere more or less with the functions of digestion, which are 

 more or less analogous to such change. As the subject is a highly 

 important one, I shall take the liberty of quoting a few opinions 

 by leading English physicians, called out by a circular recently 

 addressed to the profession by the editor of the London " Lancet " 

 (see " Lancet," 1897, page 56) : — 



Sir Henry Thompson writes that he has long held the addition 

 of antiseptics to food as undesirable, though he is unable to pro- 

 duce evidence that any one of them had given rise to deleterious 

 action. 



Dr. Pavy wrote that he did not consider our knowledge suffi- 

 ciently extended to permit of it being taken for granted that no 



