444 MILK 



bers of the Bacillus enteritidis and paratyphosus group of bac- 

 teria. This kind of poisoning resembles meat-poisoning and may 

 be accompanied or followed by infections of the alimentary tract. 

 The poison is sometimes preformed in the milk. 



The term "milk-poisoning" is occasionally used when babies 

 are unable to tolerate milk. The milk may be perfectly normal 

 and wholesome, but some infants have an idiosyncrasy in regard 

 to cow's milk which has never been satisfactorily explained. 

 In these cases the term milk-poisoning is misleading, and dairy- 

 men have been wrongfully suspected of selling really poisonous 

 milk. 



Accounts of milk-borne epidemics of scarlet fever can be found 

 in Swithinbank and Newman, the Bacteriology of Milk, in Hy- 

 gienic Laboratory Bulletin 56, and in Jordan's article, The Case 

 for Pasteurization. 



DISEASES DERIVED FROM Cows 



Any abnormal physical or nervous condition of the cow is 

 followed by the production of a milk abnormal both in quantity 

 and quality. With ac\ite or chronic diseases the flow may stop 

 abruptly. An observant milker may be of much service in the 

 detection of disease, since a sudden decrease in quantity or a sud- 

 den strange appearance of the milk should be noted at once. The 

 cow should be immediately separated from the herd and subjected 

 to examination. Sometimes the quality shows degeneration be- 

 fore there is a decided decrease in quantity. The milk may ac- 

 quire an off-taste, may coagulate rapidly; the amount of milk- 

 sugar, ash, protein, and fat may increase or decrease from the 

 normal average, and the reaction may turn alkaline, while the 

 consistency may become thin or stringy. Any one or more of 

 these changes indicate some pathologic condition. The most 

 common and, therefore, the most important disease met with is 

 tuberculosis. Foot-and-mouth disease is of more common occur- 

 rence in Europe than in this country, although of late years there 

 have been several severe epidemics of the disease in the United 

 States. Other diseases of less importance derived from cows are 

 mastitis or garget, anthrax, rabies, actinomycosis, botryomycosis, 

 cowpox, milk sickness, contagious abortion, and gastro-intestinal 

 troubles. In goats Malta fever is of some importance. 



Tuberculosis. It is difficult to estimate the amount of tuber- 

 culosis among cattle, since it is almost impossible to examine all 

 animals. Tuberculosis is a communicable disease and is caused 

 by the tubercle bacillus, discovered by Koch in 1882. Following 

 the discovery of this bacillus the belief was prevalent that bovine 



