208 ADULTERATIONS. SWILL MILK. 



a similar manner the smallest particle of sour milk will 

 taint a larg % e quantity of sweet. 



The milk-room should be removed from dampness, 

 and all gases which might be injurious to the milk by 

 infecting the atmosphere. If the state of the atmos- 

 phere and the temperature, as has been stated, affect it, 

 all contact with foreign substances to which it is liable 

 in careless and slovenly milking, and all air rendered 

 impure by vegetables and innumerable other things 

 kept in a house-cellar, will be much more liable to taint 

 and injure it. Milk appears to absorb odors from ob- 

 jects near it, to such an extent that a piece of catnip 

 lying near the pan has been known to impart its flavor 

 to it. 



Milk, as sold in most large cities, is often adulterated 

 to a great extent, but most frequently with water. Not 

 unfrequently, too, a part of the cream is first taken off, 

 and water afterwards added ; in which case the use of 

 burnt sugar is very common for coloring the milk, the 

 blueness of which would otherwise lead to detection. 

 The adulteration of pure milk from the healthy cow by 

 water, though dishonest, and objectionable in the high- 

 est degree, is far less iniquitous in its consequences 

 than the nefarious traffic in " swill-milk," or milk pro- 

 duced from cows fed entirely on " still-slops," from 

 which they soon become diseased, after which the milk 

 contains a subtle poison, which is as difficult of detec- 

 tion by any known process of chemistry as the miasma 

 of an atmosphere tainted with yellow fever or the chol- 

 era. The simple fact is sufficiently palpable, that no 

 pure and healthy milk can be produced by an unhealthy 

 and diseased animal ; and that no animal can long remain 

 healthy that is fed on an unnatural food, and treated in 

 the manner too common around the distilleries of many 

 large cities. 



