CHAPTER XIX. 



THE EXAMINATION OF MILE: MILK 

 STANDARDS. 



i. Dirt in Milk. A great many impurities are found 

 in milk, some of them, as already noticed, consisting of 

 inert matter not necessarily harmful ; others, however, are 

 of an objectionable or unclean character, and likely to 

 damage its nutritive value, or cause more or less serious 

 illness among those consuming it. Under present con- 

 ditions of production and distribution, it is not possible to 

 send to the consumer milk entirely free from pollution 

 of one kind or another. 



Much of the milk before it leaves the farm or dairy is 

 passed through sieves or strainers of muslin, cotton-wool 

 and similar materials, but these only remove the larger 

 particles of foreign matter which fall int9 ^ at tne time 

 of milking or when it is in the cowshed. 



The material collected by such strainers consists 

 chiefly of hair from the cow, pieces of dried dung, and 

 fragments of hay, straw, and other fodder. More rarely 

 are found parts of dead flies and other insects, cobwebs, 

 bits of feather and wood, woollen, linen, and cotton 

 threads and fibres from the garments of the milker, 

 skin from his hands, and hyphae of fungi. 



Although the grosser material is removed, a variable 

 quantity of " dirt " passes through the ordinary strainers 



used, and appears as a sediment covering the bottom of 

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