!64 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



inspection of dairies, slaughterhouses, and other sanitary 

 work; inspection of milk 1 and other food stuffs; the de- 

 partment gathers vital statistics ; it enforces the rules for 

 disinfection of public buildings. 



Importance of Cooperation with the Health Department. 

 Only an ignorant and short-sighted person would fail to 

 cooperate promptly and cheerfully with local or state 

 health officers. It is for the benefit and protection of 

 every one that the truth concerning contagious diseases 

 be reported promptly. Only in this way may outbreaks 

 of disease be prevented and many lives saved. He is a 

 bad citizen and a public enemy who will conceal a case of 

 disease dangerous to the community. Outbreaks of fatal 

 diseases may be easily prevented or stamped out if the 

 health officer is sustained and his directions carried out. 



1 Milk may be sterilized by boiling, but boiled milk is not digestible nor 

 nutritious. Milk may be Pasteurized by immersing bottles of milk in water 

 which is kept nearly (but not quite) at boiling point (160 F.) for five min- 

 utes. But ihis makes the milk less valuable than fresh milk, and destroys 

 beneficent microbes. Buttermilk has many such microbes, which kill injurious 

 microbes and purify the stomach. Cleanliness, or an aseptic condition, is far 

 preferable to antiseptics. 



