120 CONFERENCE ON MILK PROBLEMS 



few typhoid bacilli is a far greater source of danger than the 

 presence of millions of bacteria of the lactic acid type. But 

 in spite of the possibility that milk with a low bacterial count 

 may sometimes contain the infection of certain diseases, such 

 milk, on account of the methods necessary to be used to main- 

 tain a low bacterial count, is much less apt to be harmful than 

 milk containing large numbers of bacteria. 



No other food that we use contains the enormous number of 

 bacteria that milk sometimes does and in no other food is it so 

 difficult to keep the number reduced to a minimum. 



Milk containing large numbers of bacteria is not necessarily 

 dangerous to health, but their presence indicates possibilities 

 of danger and should not be countenanced; their presence 

 points to a lack of proper methods of production and handling 

 and such methods are apt to permit the access of infectious 

 organisms. It therefore follows that the number of bacteria 

 furnishes us with an index of the conditions under which the 

 milk has been produced and handled. 



The number of bacteria in milk is mainly dependent on five 

 factors : 



1. The care exercised in the dairy. 



%. The methods used in handling and transportation. 



3. The cleanliness of the containers. 



4. The temperature at which it is kept. 



5. The age of the milk. 



The kind of pathogenic bacteria that may be present in 

 milk is principally dependent on two factors, viz : 



(1) The health of the cow that furnishes the milk, and 

 (2) the health of the man who handles the milk. 



It is difficult to see how, in either case, the present methods 

 of laboratory examination can detect these specific bacteria, 

 if present, before such milk has been used and has exerted its 

 harmful effects. For example, to determine the presence of 

 tubercle bacilli in milk coming from a tuberculous cow would 

 jfetjuire from four to eight weeks ; of streptococci from an 

 -animal with garget, two or three days ; in the few instances in 

 which typhoid bacilli have been found in milk it required ap- 

 proximately a week to determine the fact; and by no labora- 

 tory methods that we have at present are we able to determine 

 whether the infection of scarlet feVer be present in milk. 



