138 MILK AND ITS HYGIENIC RELATIONS 



cells should, he considered, arise. If the volume reached two per 

 litre, then mastitis was almost certainly present, as diagnosed by 

 an increased number of cells present. Trommsdorff says that the 

 dirt will be found at the bottom of the tube, and can be readily 

 differentiated from the leucocytes lying upon it owing to the fact 

 that these latter present a creamy colour in contradistinction to 

 the greyish aspect of the actual dirt. The employment of this 

 method suggested by Trommsdorff has led to a considerable degree 

 of discussion. Evidently, if it can be regarded as reliable, it 

 supplies a simple method which can be used by persons not suffi- 

 ciently skilled to be capable of dealing with any microscopic test. 

 It has been objected that the capillary tube may become blocked 

 by dirt, and thus present an inaccurate reading. On the other 

 hand, it is claimed that there is no difficulty in reading off the 

 leucocyte content even should this occur. Trommsdorff himself 

 regards his test as reliable only where milk from one cow is used, 

 such milk including that obtained from all four quarters of the 

 udder. The test is not claimed to be reliable for mixed milk, since 

 here the total increase in cell content owing to disease in one or 

 only a few of the cows from whom the milk is derived, is distributed 

 through such a large quantity of milk as hardly to raise appreciably 

 the total cell content. 



The value of this test has been fully discussed by Ruhm, who 

 considers it useful for the discovery of mastitis or other disease 

 of the udder in individual cows, but when suspicion is aroused in 

 a sample of mixed milk further investigations of a microscopical 

 character should be carried out. He does not consider that the test 

 is sufficiently accurate for any judicial proceedings to be undertaken 

 consequent upon the discovery of a high volume of leucocytes. 



Ernst appears to regard Trommsdorff 's test as of considerable 

 value in determining the presence of mastitis-milk with a view 

 to further detailed examination. 



Criticisms on this method have also been raised by Schuppius 

 and Revis. Sassenhagen, using this method with the milk of cows 

 suffering from mastitis, obtained as a rule an increase in the depth 

 of the cellular deposit. He considers, however, that the test is not 

 nearly so reliable as the presence of complement in a case of 

 suspected mastitis. 



A somewhat different method was introduced by Savage, who 

 centrifugalised I c.c. of milk in a tube, the lower end of which was 

 drawn out to a smaller diameter than that of the main tube. 

 Toison's fluid was added directly to the milk, which was then 

 centrifuged at 1800 revolutions per minute. After centrifuging, 

 the cream was shaken up with a clean glass rod to disentangle such 

 cells as had risen with it. The tubes were then again centrifuged 

 for ten minutes. The cream and fluid were then removed down 

 to the i c.c. mark at the bottom of the tube. The cells in the fluid of 

 this remaining cubic centimetre were then counted by means of the 



