THE MILK SITUATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 97 



asserts, be used with safety and without danger of interfering with 

 the nutritive processes, the municipal milk supply being reserved 

 entirely for the use of infants artificially fed. 



While these averments coming from so eminent an authority on 

 matters of pure food as the present Chief of the Federal Bureau of 

 Chemistry are entitled to the fullest consideration, the committee is 

 prepared to believe that the use of powdered milk as suggested would 

 not be satisfactory to the ordinary consumer, and that it has not been 

 scientifically demonstrated that milk may be reduced to powdered 

 form and retain, when subsequently diluted, the proper proportion 

 of butter fat and other ingredients in such status as to render the 

 product as assimilable and nutritious as clean, raw milk, or properly 

 pasteurized milk of the requisite degree of purity and cleanliness. 



Among the advantages of pasteurization it may be stated that 

 proper pasteurization under official supervision reduces to a minimum 

 the number of pathogenic live bacteria and eliminates the danger 

 of infection from tubercular, typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and 

 other germs, as well as from diarrhea and other intestinal disorders, 

 which are especially common in infants and younger children, par- 

 ticularly in the summer months, and which are so fruitful a cause of 

 mortality. While the danger .of tubercular infection through milk 

 may be largely eliminated by the compulsory application of the tuber- 

 culin test, this expedient does not safeguard against the communica- 

 tion of typhoid fever, diphtheria, and other infectious diseases intro- 

 duced into the milk by a bacillus carrier or through contamination in 

 other ways in its handling from time of milking to the moment of 

 consumption, nor against possible tubercular infection when handled 

 by a person suffering with tuberculosis, or when kept amid sur- 

 roundings frequented by tuberculous patients. 



Pasteurization appears at the present time to be the only practica- 

 ble solution of the milk problem. The objections raised to this treat- 

 ment of milk seem to be either theoretical or such as may be readily 

 overcome. Milk to be as clean as desired must be obtained from espe- 

 cially well-equipped dairy farms and handled exclusively by skilled 

 and conscientious persons. The cost of installing such equipment and 

 employing such a class of labor would necessarily result in a decided 

 increase in the sale price of milk, while pasteurization, especially if 

 done on a suitable scale, would not, it is believed, increase the price of 

 milk more than a fraction of a cent per quart. 



Since the date of the first attempt at commercial pasteurization this 

 treatment of milk has been prescribed in many municipalities in the 

 United States. 



While it has been axiomatically averred that " pure milk is better 

 than purified milk," and it is clearly recognized that milk cleanly pro- 

 duced is better than bacteria-laden and dirty milk, even when sub- 

 jected to the process of pasteurization, yet in the existing conditions 

 of dairy farming and the comparatively recent application of sani- 

 tary methods to the production of milk, a safe product can not, in the 

 judgment of the committee, be assured without pasteurization, for 

 while in its opinion the pasteurization even of cleanly produced milk 

 does not impair to any appreciable degree its wholesomeness and at- 

 tractiveness as an article of diet, pasteurization, properly adminis- 

 tered, of uncleanly milk, or milk which has not been produced with 



82444 S. Doc. 863, 61-3 7 



