Feb. 26, 1880] 



NATURE 



403 



by the disappearance of a tribe of erroneous fears, 

 annoyances, and malpractices, which are reciprocally 

 inflicted on both parties. And this with the result that 

 the natural use of fresh milk would commend itself to the 

 world in such a manner as to compensate the hypo- 

 thetical disorder entailed by any such freak of fashion as 

 above indicated. 



Foremost among these easily-defined but little known 

 facts stands the exceedingly sensitive nature of the mate- 

 rial itself, a clear conception of which alone would wipe 

 out many charges against unoffending causes, and prove 

 a natural and inevitable salve for many sore grievances. 

 In the first place it must be distinctly realised that nearly 

 the whole of the vast demand made upon milk is, in fact, 

 outside its natural functions ; and is, so to speak, ab 

 initio, an unfair one. Nature never designed milk for 

 exposure to atmospheric air or variations from its own 

 limits of temperature, its primary purpose being to gently 

 supplement and gradually replace that source of the 

 earliest sustentation which commences from the fountain 

 of life itself. It is scarcely necessary to point out that 

 in the natural process milk is but a transition-compound, 

 evolved directly with the blood, and passed (without 

 delay, exposure, or appreciable change of temperature) 

 from the body of the parent to that of the offspring, there 

 to meet with an immediate assimilation by which the 

 conversion into blood is completed. If practical evidence 

 of this were needed, the chemist and comparative analyst 

 will point with interest to the really very inconsiderable 

 difference both in mechanical and chemical structure 

 which subsists between the two. 



Similar also is their behaviour when cooled and ex- 

 posed to the air, save only that the changes occurring in 

 blood show it to be ever, more susceptible of chemical 

 alteration than milk. 



Have we then much reason in our surprise or com- 

 plaint when this exquisitely delicate compound occasion- 

 ally resents the outrageous changes from heat to cold and 

 back again — the hours of ruthless jolting and contact 

 with air of every degree of impurity, which we expect it 

 to sustain with unruffled sweetness of te nper ? 



Rather let us marvel that a confection (for such it really 

 is) which the tenderest care can hardly retain in its pris- 

 tine perfection, should so often reach our breakfast-tables 

 with the refinement of its true quality so little impaired. 



Only of late years have even the commercial authori- 

 ties practically learned the lessons of purity which some 

 of them have so creditably endeavoured to teach us by 

 concentrating the business within large-scale establish- 

 ments when time and capital are really devoted to securing 

 the desired care. 



Now let us look more closely at one or two of the 

 innate peculiarities of milk, in consequence of which a 

 large amount of grumbling is almost invariably lavished 

 upon the wrong heads. The most pregnant of all these 

 is what we shall call its effluvium, that is to say, effluvium 

 in the strict sense, to which nothing offensive necessarily 

 attaches. 



Every known substance is capable, in a greater or less 

 degree, of both diffusing and imbibing effluvia or vaporous 

 compounds which are often beyond the reach of any 

 chemical estimation. These become known to us, if at 

 all, through the sense of smell, and only subsequently by 

 their action on surrounding matters. Probably but few 

 persons outside the scientific world would be prepared to 

 hear that it would be next to impossible to devise a com- 

 pound liquid more susceptible to effluvia/ influences than 

 fresh milk. 



Imbued at its outset with a slight and agreeable efflu- 

 vium of its own, it possesses every condition of structure 

 favourable to the reception and retention of every volatile 

 matter approaching it. Most persons are aware of the 

 affinity of all oily matters for odoriferous principles of 

 any kind, and to such as are acquainted with the compo- 



sition of milk, an illustration of daily occurrence cannot 

 seem overdrawn. A can of milk is received into the 

 house in the evening, and according to a tradition, com- 

 mendable as far as it goes, is at once poured into a clean 

 earthenware jug ; there is no cover, perhaps, but the 

 vessel is clean. This is stood, say on a stone shelf in the 

 larf er, to keep cool and free from taint Its companions 

 there area joint or two of cold meat (in its gravy), a few un- 

 finished tarts and blanc-manges, a large bowl of scrap- 

 bread (with incipient fungoid growth ),a couple of dozen of 

 eggs (not all fresh), underneath, the cheese ; overhead, a 

 jar of onions in pickle ; in the near distance a few head of 

 game in an advanced stage of— well, "keeping", and 

 last, but not least, a closed window. Now, what is the 

 "action" hereupon? A thousand to one, the temperature of 

 the milk is, when received, different to that of the air in 

 the larder (whether higher or lower). Immediately that 

 it comes to rest, the surface next the air becomes warmed 

 or cooled as the case may be, and by giving place to other 

 portions, sets up a series of gentle currents, by means of 

 which every part of the fluid is successively brought into 

 contact with the air, and its countless crowds of butter- 

 corpuscles, containing fatty matter in a high state of 

 sub-division, are enabled to expose the greatest possible 

 extent of surface. Now it is scarcely the fault of that 

 milk if in ten hours' time it has failed to lay by at least a 

 trace of every shade of effluvium which has had a chance 

 of circulating near it. And yet when the pardonable 

 nastiness of the milk is commented upon at breakfast, 

 there will not be found wanting some one to exclaim, 

 " What can those people feed their cows on ?" 



Is it necessary to follow the case further? into the 

 nursery or sleeping-room, for example, where the half- 

 breathed air, kept in active movement by the human 

 lungs, and laden with suspended moisture condensing 

 carbonic acid from every direction, heightens even further 

 still the conditions of contamination, while the temperature 

 is such as to place the unfortunate milk upon the very 

 tenter-hooks of absorptiveness. Indeed, one must repeat 

 that a plan could scarcely be devised, short of actually 

 pouring in acetic acid, to communicate the taint of 

 sourness with such absolute certainty and rapidity. 



In every grievance, therefore, that arises on the score 

 of bad or tainted milk, let us at least learn to distrust the 

 last place it has been in rather than the first ; and ask 

 ourselves whether it is not possible that a substance which 

 has already gone so far out of its way to serve us may not 

 have been finally " put upon " in a manner for which our 

 own end of the transaction is alone responsible. Let it be 

 borne in mind that our own care of the milk we purchase 

 is more important than that which precedes it, for two 

 obvious reasons — first, that we receive it at a late period 

 of its life, when it has already suffered from previous ill- 

 usage, and is therefore more susceptible of injury; and 

 secondly, that we receive it in small quantities, and 

 thereby expose a proportionately larger surface to con- 

 tamination. 



The other chief point upon which general prejudice is 

 still much astray is that of modern adulteration. There 

 is no doubt that within the last ten years that which was 

 the rule in this respect has become the exception, and it 

 is a high satisfaction to be able to say that in London 

 especially there is even less cause for present uneasiness 

 on the score of tampering with milk than is popularly 

 supposed. The system of supervision and the simplicity 

 of tests have really driven the ancient mysteries of 

 "Bob" and "Simpson" into a remote corner, and 

 Annatto stands forth in the daylight with an easy 

 conscience. 



Pure milk, and not only pure but clean milk, can be 

 obtained with certainty at current prices, and when this 

 is the case it will take no long period to obliterate the 

 common fallacy which still clings to the idea that yellow 

 milk must be rich, white milk chalky, and blue milk 



