104 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



When the milk is not pasteurized in the final container the 

 greatest care also should be exercised to guard against recon- 

 tamination of the milk after pasteurization and before it is 

 sealed in the consumers' package, — the bottle. This means 

 clean pasteurizers, pumps, conveyors and bottle fillers, clean 

 and sterile bottles and caps, machine capping instead of hand 

 capping, etc. When in-bottle pasteurization is practiced the 

 danger from contamination after pasteurization is largely re- 

 moved. When the pasteurization and packing of milk is regu- 

 lated and supervised by State and municipal health officers, 

 as should be done and as is now being done in most of the 

 larger cities, these details are largely taken care of. The time 

 has passed when pasteurization can be justly termed a mere 

 makeshift, or, as others have said, an unreliable remedy for 

 an uncertain danger. 



Another very popular objection to pasteurization has been 

 that it puts a premium on slackness and shiftlessness in the 

 production and handling of milk, and that it therefore results 

 in a postponement of the day when clean and pure milk shall 

 arrive on our markets. This is a time-worn argument, and it 

 represents a fabric largely of the theorist. While there may 

 have been isolated cases when it applied, experience has shown 

 it to be largely illusory; what happens to the milk after it 

 leaves the farm is of very little concern to the average milk 

 producer. The chances are that he does not know whether 

 his milk is subjected to pasteurization or not, and even if he 

 did, such knowledge would not induce him to modify his way 

 of handling. Again, milk that has not received the proper care 

 on the farm often cannot be pasteurized at all, because such 

 milk does not survive the process of heating and would not be 

 marketable after pasteurization. For this reason pasteurizing 

 plants are automatically compelled to use greater care in the 

 inspection of their milk at the platform, than dealers who do 

 not pasteurize, and milk unfit for pasteurization is rejected. 



Another objection frequently heard is that the heating de- 

 stroys the lactic acid bacteria which in reality are beneficial, 

 and that putrefactive types of bacteria are left intact, which, 

 when relieved from the restraining action of the acid bacteria, 

 develop and form products injurious to health. Mr. Rogers 



