300 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



meat-juice or beet-juice may then be added to the milk 

 when used, and so "infantile scurvy" be avoided. Con- 

 sumers (older children and adults) who are taking other 

 foods do not need this additional precaution. Milk thus 

 " Pasteurized " is the safest milk. 



But there is a very serious precaution to be observed 

 in all cases. In such Pasteurized milk the lactic organism 

 or ferment usually present is destroyed. Consequently 

 the milk does not " go sour " by the growth of the lactic 

 ferment. This is no advantage, but a serious danger. 

 For the lactic " souring " of milk is not injurious, but, on 

 the contrary, a safeguard. It actually prevents the 

 growth in the milk of other really harmful and deadly 

 germs. Thus when the lactic germ is not there, but 

 killed by heat, these other deadly germs get their chance. 

 A fly or other dirt-carrier brings to the sterilized milk 

 " putrefactive " bacteria and such germs (terribly common) 

 as those of " green " or infantile diarrhoea, not to mention 

 others. If the milk had been unsterilized and gone sour 

 by the growth of the lactic ferment, these more danger- 

 ous germs could not have flourished in the acid conditions 

 produced by it. The danger of Pasteurized milk is that 

 if kept more than a few hours at the ordinary temperature 

 of a dwelling-room, and not carefully protected, it may 

 be a very ready means of communicating infantile 

 diarrhoea and other intestinal disease. It would therefore 

 seem to be desirable to restore to the Pasteurized milk a 

 small quantity of a pure culture of lactic germs. This 

 could be easily done. The milk would have had its 

 tubercle-bacilli and others removed by heat, and then, 

 after cooling, it would receive a very few lactic germs as a 

 protective in case it should be kept by the consumer 

 long enough to get infected by the bacteria of intestinal 

 disease. It is imperative that good, nourishing milk, free 



