THE MILK SUPPLY OF CITIES. 639 



steam is turned in upon them. Everything connected with the 

 establishment is conducted with the greatest attention to cleanli- 

 ness, and upon a very large scale. The bottled milk is subsequent- 

 ly distributed in ordinary milk carts. A bacteriologist is constantly 

 testing the efficiency of the machines by bacteriological examina- 

 tions of the Pasteurized milk. 



The most important feature in this undertaking is that the com- 

 pany furnishes the city with milk at the same price as that fur- 

 nished by the other companies without Pasteurization. It seems 

 strange that this can be done, for the Pasteurization of course costs 

 something. But the explanation is essentially that heat is cheaper 

 than cold. Because of the subsequent Pasteurization this company 

 does not feel it necessary to demand that the milk should reach 

 them in as cool a condition as is required by the other companies. 

 While their business rivals insist that they shall receive milk not 

 warmer than 4 C., this Pasteurizing company receives it as warm 

 as 10 C., and this saving in the cooling largely pays for the Pas- 

 teurization. The mechanical bottling enables them to employ a 

 cheaper grade of help than is necessary when the milk is peddled 

 in carts. 



The results of this endeavor to furnish safe milk are in quite de- 

 cided contrast to those connected with sterilized milk. Sterilized 

 milk has now been on the market for quite a number of years, but, 

 in spite of the fact that it can be readily bought in most cities, the 

 actual business is small. The largest milk-supply company in Eu- 

 rope has a demand for only a few hundred quarts per day. This 

 company in Copenhagen offers to the public a milk which has the 

 taste of fresh milk and which has been so treated as to have all 

 pathogenic bacteria within it destroyed, and at the same time the 

 other bacteria greatly reduced in number. This milk it sells at 

 the same price as ordinary milk. As a result its business has rap- 

 idly grown, and instead of supplying a few hundred quarts it sells 

 some thirty thousand daily, and the amount of milk handled is 

 increasing with great rapidity. It probably sells more Pasteurized 

 milk than all the sterilized milk sold in Europe. 



It would thus seem that we have here actually a practical 

 method of dealing with the new problem of the milk supply. That 

 it is practical is manifest from the actual results in this institution 

 in Copenhagen. Whether it is regarded as satisfactory will of 

 course depend upon our standpoint. Those that insist that the 

 milk must be freed from all danger, and hence deprived of all bac- 

 teria, will not regard this method as satisfactory. But probably 

 every one will recognize that milk thus treated is very much safer 

 than raw milk, and that dangers from typhoid epidemics and tuber- 



