SOUKCES OF INFECTION IN THE STABLE. 27 



taken (e.g.), the application of corrosive sublimate) are 

 furthermore dangerous. Milk as found in practical dairy- 

 ing has therefore lost its ability to keep for an indefinite 

 period of time, and the various bacteria contained in it are 

 trying to change it in one way or another. Fortunately 

 we are so situated that the milk does not need to be 

 entirely germ-free (sterile) for the purposes for which it 

 generally is used, a truth which practical experience has 

 long ago taught us. Experience has also taught us that 

 the better we succeed in preserving the original qualities 

 of the milk before the process of manufacture begins, the 

 finer will the products be, and above all the better will 

 they keep. However intelligent and experienced a dairy- 

 man may be, he cannot make first-class products from milk 

 that has been carelessly handled. 



Since bacteria are found everywhere, some one may 

 object that it cannot be worth the trouble to fight them. 

 A fight against omnipresent and even invisible enemies 

 must at any rate be hopeless. This reasoning is not, how- 

 ever, justified ; for we do possess strong means of fighting 

 the bacteria. In several kinds of manufacturing enter- 

 prises it is already possible to limit and govern the activ- 

 ities of the bacteria. As an example may be mentioned 

 that the standpoint was long ago reached by the manu- 

 facturers of beer that they no longer need fear being dis- 

 turbed in the normal progress of their work through in- 

 vasion of bacteria, but on the contrary may determine at 

 will the kinds of yeast that are to start the fermentations 

 desired. Not until after this was reached it was possible 

 to make well-keeping and always uniform products in 

 this industry a goal toward which dairying, of course, 

 also must aim. 



