MILK FOE CITY CONSUMPTION. 139 



produce a very soft and stinking manure.* It is expen- 

 sive to preserve cleanliness under such conditions; but, on 

 the other hand, such farms pay better than those in the 

 country, and their owners ought therefore to be willing 

 to go to somewhat greater expense. It is deplorable, how- 

 ever, that in most cases they do not even pretend to keep 

 their cows clean. 



We saw before (see page 87) that a milk examined 

 half an hour after milking on three consecutive days con- 

 tained the following number of bacteria per cubic centi- 

 meter: 730,000, 560,000, and 780,000. This milk came 

 from a village cow-stable of the kind just described; its 

 taste was, strange to say, very good, and it gave the impres- 

 sion of being unusually rich, But it very soon spoiled; 

 although kept 011 a window-sill at a temperature of about 

 45 F., it coagulated slightly and turned " off flavor" after 

 only ten hours. The examination spoken of took place 

 in April. Analyses of milk from similar farms gave also 

 bad results, although the bacteria content was not as 

 large as in the case mentioned. 



The explanation that such milk can be used in house- 

 holds in spite of all it has gone through lies in the fact 

 that it is rapidly consumed. It is delivered to the cus- 

 tomers as soon as it is milked, and often consumed a couple 

 of hours afterwards. _ T 



* Soxhlet states (Munch, med. Woch., 1891, No. 19) that feeding 

 stuffs causing frequent evacuations of a thin dung favor the con- 

 tamination of the milk, since they make it more difficult to keep the 

 cows clean ; to these belong sour distillers' slump, root leaves, dif- 

 fusion chips, etc. The potato bacillus present in distillers' slump 

 furthermore makes the milk liable to abnormal fermentations ; hay- 

 dust contaminates the milk in a similar way. See also Auerbach, 

 Berl. klin. Wochenschr., 1893, No. 14. W. 



