290 THE MILK QUESTION 



and the better class of dairymen, have combined, like the 

 old English guilds, to form a fund to foster scientific re- 

 search. This work is done in the Department of Preventive 

 Medicine and Hygiene at the Harvard Medical School 

 under the auspices of the Milk and Baby Hygiene Associa- 

 tion. 



M ilk preservatives 



Chemical preservatives. Many different preservatives 

 have been advocated and used at different times to prevent 

 milk souring. The commonest among these are: boracic 

 acid and borax, formaldehyde, bicarbonate of soda, sali- 

 cylic acid, benzoic acid, peroxide of hydrogen, common 

 salt, fluorides, potassium dichromate, and so on through a 

 long list of antiseptic substances. The substances most 

 frequently employed are boracic acid, borax, formaldehyde, 

 and bicarbonate of soda. 



Von Behring, a distinguished authority, seriously advo- 

 cated the addition of formaldehyde to milk hi order to 

 preserve it. It requires an exceedingly small quantity of 

 formaldehyde to delay the souring of milk. Thus one part 

 of formaldehyde added to twenty thousand parts of milk 

 preserves the milk for forty-eight hours. Formaldehyde is 

 sold to dairymen under the trade name of "Freezine." At 

 one time many samples of milk were found upon the market 

 which showed the presence of this potent germicide. The 

 practice now, however, has largely been discontinued owing 

 to the pure food laws and the activity of health officers. 

 Those who favor the use of formaldehyde in milk claim 

 that the small quantities necessary to preserve milk for a 

 period of twenty-four hours have no appreciable effect 

 upon the digestibility of the milk and are, in fact, less harm- 

 ful than "tea, claret, or Worcestershire sauce." Yet no 

 one would willingly give such things to babies. They are 

 not always harmless to adults. Formaldehyde in the pro- 

 portion of one part to fifty thousand, in which dilution it is 



