NEW YORK MILK COMMITTEE 111 



it is there, and it is gathered up from a variety of sources, and 

 it is the putrefaction from the growth of these bacteria that 

 does the harm. 



That can be largely obviated by having the milk cooled 

 immediately after it is gathered, and kept cold until it is 

 delivered to the consumer. Then the consumer has to do his 

 part of it. He has to take the responsibility. It often hap- 

 pens that after milk is gathered as cleanly as possible, and 

 after many precautions are taken with it before it gets into 

 the hands of the consumer, the consumer does not treat it 

 properly. What does he do? He puts it upon his bureau or 

 leaves it on the window sill, perhaps for days, or pulls out the 

 plug of the bottle and leaves it in a dipper to undergo putre- 

 faction. The consumer should be instructed. It is a hard 

 matter to get people to take care of milk properly after it is 

 delivered. You have heard of Straus's experience here. He 

 tried to make them close their bottles, and he couldn't do it. 

 So he made round bottomed bottles that could not lie upon a 

 table until they had put the cork in. And then, often, they 

 emptied it out into a tumbler. 



They did all sorts of things to leave the milk exposed. A 

 good deal of the damage is done right there. Even if the milk 

 comes to the consumer after many precautions, he has to do 

 his share in taking care of it. The public ought to be in- 

 structed as to that and I think that is one of the things that 

 dairymen ought to do. They should send out literature from 

 time to time and take advantage of every opportunity for in- 

 structing the public in these respects. Even though it is cer- 

 tified milk, it should be taken care of in the house until it is 

 used, just as dairymen take care of it. It should be kept cold. 



But that is not a very serious part of the milk question 

 not by a good deal, although it is bad enough. The serious 

 part of it is that milk may be a cause of disease. Now, there 

 are certain diseases that we know, quite definitely, that milk 

 can carry. First of all is tuberculosis. Now, it was thought, 

 for a good, long time, that the bovine bacillus and the human 

 bacillus were equally virulent to the human being and equally 

 infectious. Koch took an opposite view. But later investi- 

 gation has shown that though the first belief was not correct, 

 Koch's statement also is not correct, and that the bovine 



