456 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 223 



necessary fat, to say nothing of tlie normal inor- 

 ganic salts. It must be remembered that those 

 milkmen who keep cows have a large demand for 

 ' one cow's milk ' to supply food for small chil- 

 dren, and consequent!}^ this milk is more likely to 

 be given to children than to adults, with all the 

 evil consequences which must follow. This fact 

 makes it imperative that such milk should be 

 strictly kept from the market." 



In support of the statement which we have 

 made, that distillery milk is injurious, the follow- 

 ing history is given. In August, 1882, a child 

 four months old died in Brooklyn. At the au- 

 topsy the stomach was found to contain coagu- 

 lated milk and a firm lump over three inches in 

 diameter. The stomach was reddened. The in- 

 testines contained a pale slimy material character- 

 istic of inflammation. Its membrane was studded 

 with enlarged glands. In the opinion of the 

 pathologist who made the autopsy, Dr, Leuf, 

 death was due to exhaustion, — a result of gastro- 

 enterocolitis, augmented by the presence in the 

 stomach of the firm clot of coagulated milk, 

 which was too firm for the child to vomit up or 

 pass down into the gut, and therefore acted as a 

 foreign body and irritant. The mother said the 

 child was fed on ' one cow's milk.' Dr. Bartley 

 analyzed the milk, and found it to be ' swill ' 

 milk. Its analysis was, water, 89.46 ; fat, 2.03 ; 

 sugar, 2.83 ; caseine and salts, 5.74 



In commenting on the above fatal result. Dr. 

 Bartley says, " Swill- milk does not coagulate as 

 readily as ordinary milk, but the curd formed is 

 much firmer and less easily disintegrated in the 

 former than in the latter. In most cases the flavor 

 of the swill can be tasted in the milk after it has 

 stood some hours in a corked bottle." Dr. Bart- 

 ley, as a result of his study of the subject, says in 

 regard to the feeding of swill to cows, "It is a 

 practice N\hich we cannot condemn too strongly, 

 a practice which undoubtedly adds largely to the 

 digestive troubles of infancy and childhood, and 

 especially to the cases of cholera infantum so 

 called, in the summer months." 



In the first annual report of the New York state 

 dairy commissioner, E. W. Martin, chemist, says, 

 " Various kinds of unhealthy foods veill produce 

 milk not only abnormal in the proportions of its 

 constituents, but in its reactions ; and such milk 

 must be considered unhealthy, although produced 

 by an apparently healthy animal : as, for instance, 

 the use of distillery swill."' 



In connection with this subject, it maybe of in- 

 terest to consider for a moment the mortality 

 among infants, and its principal factor. In five 

 months from June 1, 1884, 259 children under five 

 years of age died in New Haven, of which num- 



ber, 111 were from diarrhoea. The particulars of 

 thirteen cases were not ascertained ; but of the 98 

 cases whose histories were obtained, 14.3 per cent 

 were children nursed by their mothers ; 77.5 per 

 cent were bottle-fed wholly or in part from the 

 time they were two months old ; 8.2 per cent were 

 children who were longer nursed than the others, 

 but were bottle-fed at the time they were taken 

 sick. Published statistics seem to show that a 

 large majority of those who die in infancy are fed 

 by hand, that is to say, on cow's-milk. In coun- 

 tries where the death-rate under one year of age 

 is least (under 15 per cent in Norway, Sweden, 

 and Ireland), the practice of hand-feeding is al- 

 most unknown ; while, on the other hand, where 

 hand-feeding is the rule, as in Lower Bavaria and 

 the Palatinate, 50 per cent of the children die be- 

 fore reaching the age of one year. From this view 

 of the subject, the importance of the purity of the 

 milk-supply cannot be exaggerated, and all public- 

 minded citizens can do good service by fostering 

 a public opinion which will sustain boards of 

 health in their efforts to suppress traffic in swill- 

 milk. 



Aniline treatment of consumption. — A new 

 treatment of consumption has been proposed by 

 Professor Kremianski of Eussia. It having been 

 demonstrated that the most dilute solutions of 

 aniline were fatal to the tubercle bacillus, 

 Kremianski suggested that aniline might be in- 

 haled so that it would enter the circulation and also 

 come in contact with the diseased pulmonary tis- 

 sue, and destroy the bacilli wherever they might 

 be. As a result, the cavities in the lungs would be 

 converted into healthy granulating ulcers which 

 might be expected to cicatrize. The Russian 

 commission which was appointed to investigate 

 the claims of this new method of treatment has 

 experimented on a number of animals, which 

 were fatally affected by small doses of aniline. 

 The commission has concluded that aniline is not 

 harmless to animal life, but, on the contrary, very 

 poisonous indeed, and that it also exerts no bene- 

 ficial effect on phthisis. Dr. Nesteroff tried this 

 treatment upon a consumptive, with the result 

 that he became rapidly worse, and died in a 

 fortnight. It is more than probable, that, after this 

 report, the aniline treatment will be abandoned. 



SCAELET-PEVER-INFECTED MILK. — The health 



officer of Edinburgh has recently submitted a re- 

 port of the facts connected with an epidemic of 

 scarlet-fever in that city. His inquiry was with 

 special reference to the connection between this 

 outbreak and the milk-supply, and has resulted in 

 showing that the affected district was supplied 



