'2U CIVIC BIOLOGY 



Clean milk. For many, possibly for all, coiuinuiiities no better health- 

 conservation work could be undertaken than solving, each member of 

 the class for his own home and the whole class for the home commu- 

 nitv, the problem of safe and clean milk. Milk is safe when all disease 

 "•erms are kei>t out of it, and it is clean when free from filth of all sorts, 

 usually indicated by numbersof other bacteria. As secreted by healthy 

 cows, milk is pure, and by ol)serving hospital-operating-room precau- 

 tious it can Itc kept so.^ A'on Behring's statement that milk should not 

 l»e used for infant feeding if it contains more than 1000 bacteria per 

 cubic centimeter is rarely lived up to. Boston's standard of purity 

 (which Spargo thinks is worse than no standard at all) allows 500,000 

 bacteria per cubic centimeter, and "certified milk " may run as high as 

 10,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter. Secure copies of specifications for 

 local certified dairies. ^ If jwssible, have a committee of the class, or 

 each member, work iqt the technique of making the bacterial co\mt and 

 examine local milk supplies.^ 



We have been too long scoring dairies according to l^uildings and 

 e(|uipment, and nothing could be more convincing for the truth of 

 Dr. North's contention that dirty milk is 90 per cent due to dirty or 

 io-norant dairymen than his demonstration in ten Kelton dairies. Ten 

 trained Oxford dairymen were shipped over to Kelton in time to do the 

 evening luilking in ten of the dirtiest Kelton dairies, with the result 

 shown t)n the next l)age : bacteria in the milk reduced from inillions 

 to less than 10,000 per cubic centimeter, in all but No. 0, a most in- 

 structive exception.^ 



Four things necessary to production of clean milk : 



1. Milking with dry hands into covered pails. 



'2. Proper washing and sterilization of milking })ails and milk cans, 



:>. Cooling milk by placing cans in tanks of cold water or ice water. 



1. Regular laboratory testing of milk for bacteria, and payment 

 based on the laboratory tests. 



Pasteurized milk. Dangerous milk can be made safe by heating to (JO' 

 for twenty minutes, and this does not seriously injure its nutritional 

 value. This treatment kills all non-spore-forming disease germs of 



^ Kosenau, The Milk Question, p. 7o. (Tells liow Mr. S. L. Stewart, New- 

 burgh, New York, produces milk free from bacteria.) 



2 Rosenau, Kequirements for "Certified Milk," pp. 151-lGO. 



"^ Pussell and Hastings, Experimental Dairy Bacteriology, p. 122. 



■* North, "The Dairyman versus the Dairy." American Journal of Public 

 Jlcalth, Vol. V, pp. .511V-52.5. 



