TYPES OF BACTERIA FOUND IN MILK. 149 



Europe sour milk is commonly used as a beverage, and has been 

 highly recommended as a healthful drink. It is claimed that the 

 lactic acid, present in abundance in these sour milks, has a very 

 beneficial action in the intestine, preventing the growth of the com- 

 mon putrefactive germs, and serving in general as a corrective for 

 various intestinal disturbances. It is not ordinary sour milk that is 



FIG. 33. Curds from two lots of milk soured by a gas-forming and a 

 non-gas-forming bacterium. 



especially recommended for this purpose, but a special form, found 

 most common in Bulgaria, and used veiy widely as a drink in that 

 country. Such milk contains a variety of lactic acid bacterium 

 very different from the two above described, and deserving to be 

 called a distinct type. It is in the form of a long, large rod (Fig. 34), 

 which frequently forms long chains. It differs from the more com- 

 mon type in producing a much larger quantity of lactic acid. The 



