NEW YORK MILK COMMITTEE 99 



that my test for milk was to examine the bottom of the tum- 

 bler before I drank it, and it was not many years ago that I 

 realized that it was possible for milk to be free from the taste 

 which is characteristic of the odor of the stable. I supposed, 

 for a great many years, that one of the normal flavors of milk 

 was that characteristic of the stable, but I have learned, within 

 the last ten or fifteen years, that that is not a normal con- 

 stituent or a normal flavor, but that good milk is absolutely 

 free from anything that is offensive in the slightest way to a 

 normal taste. 



It is the purpose of this paper, not so much to discuss with 

 completeness the subject under consideration as to make an 

 introduction which may serve as a basis for discussion. 



It is now generally recognized that the value of milk as 

 human food depends upon two classes of factors: (1st) chem- 

 ical composition, by which we mean the thirty or forty com- 

 pounds normally contained in milk; and (2nd) freedom from 

 everything that tends to affect injuriously the health of con- 

 sumers, whether micro-organisms, or toxins, or preservatives. 



Up to about ten years ago the first set of factors served as 

 the chief center of discussion ; since then the emphasis has rap- 

 idly shifted to the second set of factors. Formerly pure milk 

 meant simply normal or unadulterated milk; now it means 

 rather milk biologically clean. The present-day discussions 

 might easily lead an uninformed layman to think that milk 

 consists simply of water and solids, the chief solids being dirt 

 and bacteria and leucocytes. 



When requested to take part in this conference, it seemed 

 to the speaker that it might serve a useful purpose to discuss 

 briefly some phases of milk purity from the old-fashioned stand- 

 point of chemical constituents. A discussion of legal defini- 

 tions, or so-called standards of pure milk should be peculiarly 

 pertinent just now, in view of the fact that the late legislature 

 of this state changed the legal definition which had been in 

 force for about a generation. Formerly, milk as normally 

 produced by cows was regarded as pure or unadulterated when 

 it contained not less than & per cent of milk- fat and 12 per 

 cent of total milk-solids. The recent change retains the min- 

 imum limit of & per cent for fat but lowers the percentage re- 

 quired for total milk solids from 12 to 11.50. 



