46 CONFERENCE ON MILK PROBLEMS 



serves, and the like, compared with milk supply, are easy to 

 deal with. 



Doubtless to the public at large this seems surprising, for 

 like the cup of cold water which is a symbol of disinterested 

 charity, the glass of milk has long been regarded as the whole- 

 somest of foods and the most serviceable of drinks. How 

 then does it happen that this once simplest and most trusted 

 of all the foods of man constitutes so difficult a problem in 

 modern life? The answer is threefold: first, because of the 

 growth of cities; second, because of the rise of Bacteriology; 

 and third, because of the testimony of epidemics. 



The growth of cities has separated cows, the producers, 

 from mankind, the consumers, and the rise of Sanitary Sci- 

 ence has disclosed unsuspected dirt and dangers in milk, 

 hitherto veiled and hidden by its whiteness. Think for a mo- 

 ment of the ever widening distance, as cities grow, between the 

 cow and the consumer ; a fact bringing in its train a long chain 

 of undesirable consequences, such as these: lack of acquaint- 

 ance and therefore of sympathetic interest between original 

 producers and ultimate consumers ; transportation problems 

 of increasing magnitude, cost and complexity; the lapse of 

 time, giving opportunities for milk to grow old and stale and 

 finally to spoil ; manifold handling by various middlemen, giv- 

 ing opportunity for sophistication and adulteration; any or 

 all of which may be sufficient to bring about extensive de- 

 terioration in the quality and increase in cost. 



In the second place, while human experience and Chemistry 

 long since proved milk one of the most decomposable of foods, 

 the newer Science of Bacteriology has revealed the presence, 

 previously unsuspected even in comparatively clean sweet 

 milk, of vast hordes and various kinds of micro-organisms ; 

 and the microscope has confirmed the frequent testimony of 

 the eye and the nose to the presence in market milk of 

 visible or invisible amounts of cow dung and other forms of 

 dirt. 



In the third place, the testimony of epidemology is that 

 hundreds of disastrous epidemics of infectious diseases, especi- 

 ally of typhoid fever and scarlet fever, have proceeded directly 

 from the drinking of a supposedly fresh and pure milk. 



I need not elaborate or dwell upon these now wellknown 



