110 THE MILK SITUATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



While Dr. Crichton, commissioner of health of Seattle, Wash., 

 adds: 



It is not right to the legitimate and honest dealer unless we do insist upon a 

 bacterial count, because it gives a dishonest, filthy dealer a chance to sell dan- 

 gerous milk and to unjustly compete with a man striving to produce good, pure, 

 wholesome milk. 



The feasibility of indicating the maximum number of bacteria 

 allowable in milk offered for consumption is now almost universally 

 accepted, provided, as suggested by the Chief of the Bureau of Ani- 

 mal Industry, the number fixed be not unreasonably low. Surg. Gen. 

 Wyman observes that for pasteurized milk a maximum bacterial 

 standard is indispensable, and probably even more important than 

 inspection. The bacterial count is, he adds, an index to the efficiency 

 of the methods used for the production of a safe milk and is a check 

 likewise upon the efficiency of the inspection service. 



NUMBER OF BACTERIA REASONABLY ALLOWABLE. 



The general milk supply of the city of Washington averaged 

 11,270,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter in the summer of 1907 and 

 22,134,000 during the summer of 1906. While the number of bacteria 

 in milk is not quite as important, from the standpoint of public 

 health, as are the species represented and the nature of the bacterial 

 products, it may be stated with satisfaction that cleanliness and a lib- 

 eral use of ice will result in minimizing the total number of bacteria, 

 and thus afford a degree of protection against the dangerous species 

 and their toxic products. Milk containing few bacteria will contain 

 proportionately few or no harmful varieties. And it should be added 

 that most of the prejudicial bacteria do not thrive at all at the low 

 temperature at which milk should be kept in order to keep down the 

 total bacterial content. While milk freshly drawn under ordinary 

 circumstances almost invariably contains bacteria, even when the 

 most careful precautions are exercised against contamination the 

 organisms in such carefully collected milk are shown to be harmless 

 to animals used in laboratory tests, and we may assume that the pres- 

 ence of such organisms in reasonable numbers does not render milk 

 harmful to man. 



As to the maximum number of bacteria which should be specified 

 as allowable, there is a considerable range of speculation, the figures 

 suggested by the authorities consulted by the committee extending 

 from 10,000 to 3,000,000 per cubic centimeter. A large percentage 

 of those who have given the committee the benefit of their advice, 

 however, favor the imposition of 100,000 as a maximum content. 

 The committee is inclined to the belief, though, that at this stage in 

 the development of a purer milk supply for the District of Columbia, 

 the specification of that number would perhaps be unnecessarily re- 

 strictive, and recommends that, for the present at least, 500,000 be 

 agreed upon as the maximum number allowable for raw milk (not 

 certified), and 100,000 for pasteurized milk. In the judgment of 

 the committee, it may develop in years to come that these numbers 

 should be decreased, especially if pasteurization be uniformly insisted 

 upon, and that the dairymen may then without difficulty readjust 

 conditions to meet what would now be regarded as an onerous re- 

 quirement. It has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the com- 



