NEW YORK MILK COMMITTEE 115 



fully sometimes with just cold water or warm water which 

 is not sufficient to kill the infective agent. 



Then, again, somebody on the farm may have scarlet fever 

 or some other infectious disease. Many of you who are medi- 

 cal men and have had experience know that a lot of farmers 

 allow cases of scarlet fever to run their course without ever 

 having called a doctor at all. They often go through typhoid 

 fever without ever having an examination made of the patient, 

 or even knowing what it was, as they may just have felt out of 

 sorts. Such cases are never reported. With diphtheria and 

 influenza it is the same way. We do not get all our colds 

 from drafts on the back of the neck. When we stand up in 

 a street car holding a strap, we get the infection on our hands, 

 and we get it in the drinking cup. The man who handles the 

 milk does not take any precautions when he has a cold. He 

 goes on milking the cows. He just rubs his hands over his 

 nose, and he milks the cows, and those organisms go into the 

 milk again and are spread everywhere. 



Now, to go back to the cows themselves. The cows suffer 

 from infection, just as we do. How many herds are there 

 that haven't got cases of mastitis or inflammation of the udder 

 or the milk duct. I have never seen a herd that didn't have 

 some cases at some time or other. You will find fifteen or 

 twenty per cent of the cows in a herd having inflammation of 

 the udders. You see that regularly. Do they stop sending 

 milk into town because of a slight inflammation of the udder? 

 Not a bit of it. They send it right in, and that is where we 

 get our pus organisms, that come regularly in milk. You 

 will find them regularly in milk bottles. 



You may say why is it that we go at milk, rather than other 

 kinds of food? We cook every other kind of food that is nitro- 

 genous, except milk. That is the only food that you do not 

 cook. It is the only one that is taken raw, and it is the one 

 that is a most favorable medium for the growth of the in- 

 fective agents of various diseases. They are there in the milk, 

 and anybody taking it runs a chance of getting them. When 

 you think of all the possibilities of milk being infected, the 

 strange thing is that it is not infected more than it is. How 

 are you going to prevent it? Send from the City of New 



