THE MILK SITUATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 115 



of regulating the maximum bacterial content is not at all altered by 

 compulsory pasteurization. The milk must, he asserts, be kept as 

 clean as possible before pasteurization, then pasteurized for com- 

 plete safety, and then properly handled afterwards. The Walker- 

 Gordon Laboratory in this city states that, in its judgment, compul- 

 sory pasteurization would greatly increase the necessity for careful 

 supervision of the bacterial content, so as to insure against the more 

 dangerous organisms that might survive the pasteurization. Dr. 

 Prescott, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, remarks that 

 compulsory pasteurization would not eliminate the necessity for a 

 prescribed bacterial content, but that it would make it possible to 

 establish it at a lower level, say, 50,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter. 



NECESSITY FOR ADDITIONAL PRECAUTIONS. 



The necessity for additional requirements as to cleanliness, fresh- 

 ness and purity of milk, the failure to observe which may be de- 

 tected by the bacterial count is apparent 1 when we realize that, in 

 addition to being warm, much of the milk of Washington City is 

 dirty, 1 121 of the samples examined showing a visible deposit of dirt 

 in the original container after standing several hours, which was 

 found upon microscopic examination to be composed of fecal matter, 

 hairs, straw, and all manner of extraneous substances that have no 

 place in clean milk. When we consider that the solid impurities 

 that reach the consumer are only a fraction of the total solid impuri- 

 ties with which milk has been in contact (since other larger bodies 

 have been previously removed by the process of straining to which 

 it is subjected before it is poured into the containers in which it is 

 sold), we may readily appreciate the fact that the condition of milk 

 offered for sale is even more dangerous than its superficial appearance 

 indicates. 



It is additionally urged by Dr. Woodward, health officer, that the 

 bacteriological examination of milk as it reaches the city will enable 

 the identification of farms which are persistently sending in milk 

 containing such relatively large numbers of bacteria as to surely 

 indicate faulty methods of milking and handling milk. 



APPARENT ANOMALY AS REGARDS SOUR MILK. 



It is a matter of curious interest why sour milk and its products 

 are considered a safe food to be consumed raw, when stale sweet 

 milk is looked upon with suspicion. This apparent anomaly may be 

 explained by the circumstance that, for a long time after milk is 

 drawn, all the bacteria in it increase in number, this increase being 

 more or less rapid and depending chiefly on the temperature at which 

 the milk is kept, and some of these bacteria may be the kinds that 



E reduce disease. Finally, however, when milk sours the harmless 

 ictic-acid bacteria and the lactic acid which they produce tend to 

 destroy the other microorganisms, including the disease-producing 

 bacteria, so that by the time the milk is sour it is practically free 

 from harmful germs. 



1 See Bulletin No. 35 of the Hygienic Laboratory, Public Health and Marine-Hospital 

 Service, p. 71. 



