26 BACTERIOLOGICAL METHODS 



the time of the American occupation of Cuba made the filthy 

 farming customs of the Chinese the object of a special report but 

 apparently nothing ever came of the recommendations made. 

 The Chinese also import dried human feces and dried human 

 urine for medicinal purposes and a recommendation was made 

 to Washington to prohibit such importations but apparently 

 nothing has ever been done about it. 



Pollution of fruits and berries of all kinds may come from 

 the hands of pickers. Gathering of fruit is usually done by the 

 very ignorant, those who have no proper conception of personal 

 cleanliness and of sanitation. Entire families, men, women, and 

 children, migrate to the fields and work during the hottest part of 

 the season. They live in the open or in tents or perhaps in covered 

 wagons. The environment of these temporary abiding places 

 is anything but sanitary. Sickness often prevails in these camps, 

 such as typhoid fever, scarlet fever, measles and dysentery, to say 

 nothing of the more common body and intestinal parasites which 

 infest many of the laborers. These multitudinous infections are 

 brought in contact with the fruit, berries, peas, beans, lettuce, 

 cabbage, cucumbers, etc., etc. The products of the field are then 

 carried to the consumer by a driver who disseminates the contami- 

 nation by mixing and frequent handling. And in spite of all this 

 there are those who insist on eating berries unwashed because 

 they might lose some of the natural flavor. 



Next to bread, milk is the most popular food substance. Most 

 unfortunately milk is also one of the best food substances for 

 all manner of germs, harmful and harmless. Sickness in those 

 employed about the dairying establishment has time and again 

 caused epidemics, such as diphtheria, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, 

 tuberculosis, dysentery, and streptococcic tonsillitis. Diseased 

 animals transmit infection to humans, as will be more fully ex- 

 plained in the chapters following. 



It is generally believed that the usual processes of baking and 

 cooking as practised in the household are a sure guarantee that 



