80 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



milk varies in direct proportion with the fat content. The 

 depth of the cream line in the bottle is a fair index of the fat 

 content, but in the Babcock test we have a simple and accurate 

 method of determining the fat content of any given sample of 

 milk. For our purposes, then, the fat content of normal milk 

 can be taken as a satisfactory standard of food value. Milk at 

 present prices is practically the cheapest food of its class avail- 

 able to the American public, and it is our duty to emphasize 

 this fact. 



HeaJthf Illness. — Much has been said about the dangers lurk- 

 ing in our public milk supply. It is my own feeling that too 

 much has been said, and as a result the public and many of its 

 official representatives have an unreasoning and unreasonable 

 fear regarding disease in milk. Some of the most sane and 

 helpful writings on this subject have come from Dr. E. R. 

 Kelley of your own State. After going into the records of 

 various milk-borne epidemics with my students, and presenting 

 the facts in detail so that they may have an appreciation of the 

 danger involved, I am accustomed to tell them that the prob- 

 ability of their contracting disease from a single glass of milk is 

 about the same as the probability of their being killed on their 

 next railroad journey. At first blush this will seem to you like 

 ' belittling the danger in milk. If you reflect that there are ap- 

 proximately 100,000,000 people in this country the majority of 

 whom use milk in some form every day, while a much smaller 

 number go upon the railroads each day, and in the light of this 

 comparison contrast the number killed upon the railroads with 

 those contracting diseases from milk, the illustration will seem 

 more appropriate. Neither should we conclude from the illus- 

 tration that no care should be exercised in the supervision of 

 the healthfulness of the milk supply. We all agree that our 

 railroad accidents are altogether too numerous, and they are 

 kept to the present limits only by watchful supervision. Like- 

 wise, we have. too many milk-borne epidemics, and we must in- 

 crease, rather than lessen, our efforts at their prevention. 



While tuberculin testing and medical supervision of the ani- 

 mals and men connected with milk production is a possible 

 method of safeguarding the healthfulness of the milk supply, 

 practically the same results can be obtained at far less expense 



