PREPARATION OF FROZEN AND DRIED EGGS. 



35 



fingers did not become wet. Inexperienced or inefficient breakers always have wet 

 hands. The instructions regarding clean, dry hands were illustrated by making 

 finger prints on agar plates. The bacterial growth resulting was especially useful in 

 showing the breakers the persistence of the organisms characterizing green white 

 eggs, which were plentiful at this time. The routine of cracking, turning, opening, 

 and draining the shells was that described when discussing D house in 1912 (p. 58). 



Eggs at this time cost 18 cents per dozen. It was necessary, therefore, to prevent 

 waste as far as possible. Constant supervision enforced the regulation to turn the 

 eggs upward quickly after cutting to prevent leakage, and to hold the two halves 

 of the shell long enough to drain thoroughly. Another form of waste was due to the 

 fact that 4 eggs were put into the cup before emptying; therefore 3 good eggs were 

 sometimes lost because of 1 bad one. The management feared that too much time 

 would be lost if the girls emptied the cups after each 3 eggs instead of 4. Obser- 

 vations made with a split second timer showed that it required 26 seconds longer to 

 open a dozen eggs when breaking 3 instead of 4 eggs to a cup before emptying. By 

 interpolation, this difference amounts, on a case basis, to only 1.3 minutes. This 

 extra time was considered negligible when compared with the number of good eggs 

 saved if the cup was emptied when it contained 3 eggs. 



Other observations made amply confirm the foregoing statement. For example, 

 during one-half day, there came to the breaking room 195 bad eggs. These were 

 mixed by the breakers, when breaking 4 eggs to the cup, with 301 good eggs, which 

 were, of course, discarded. At 18 cents a dozen this loss, during one-half day, 

 amounted to $4.50. It would seem desirable, to prevent waste and contamination 

 as well as to insure good grading, to work toward means by which each egg shall be 

 handled separately. 



Table 17 . — Contamination of good eggs with green-white eggs (E house, 1912). {Commer- 

 cially prepared in packing house by breaking 4 eggs per cup and endeavoring to "pour 

 off" the bad egg.) 



Sample No. 



Visit. 



Date of col- 

 lection. 



Bacteria per gram on 

 plain agar incubated 

 at — 



Gas-pro- 

 ducing 

 bacteria 

 per gram 

 in lactose 

 bile. 



Liquefying 

 organisms 

 per gram. 



Size of 

 sample. 





.20° C. 



37° C. 





4166 



E 1... 

 D 1... 

 D 1... 



E 2... 

 E 2... 

 E 2... 

 E 2... 



Apr. 22 



May 8 



May 13 



May 14 



May 15 



May 17 



26,000,000 

 1,200,000 

 4,200,000 

 35,000,000 

 14,000,000 

 7,800,000 

 9,700,000 



750,000 



500,000 



39,000 



22,000,000 



15,000,000 



500,000 



1,300,000 



10,000 



10,000 



10 



1,000,000 



10,000 



100 



in 10, 000 





2 quarts. 

 4 eggs. 

 Do. 



4271 



in 10,000 



530,000 



4,700,000 



15,000,000 

 5,500,000 

 6,100,000 



4280 



4305 



8 eggs. 



4319 



4327 



5 eggs. 



7 eggs. 



4341 





It is not possible to separate the undesirable from the desirable egg by pouring out 

 of the cup the visible undesirable egg. This fact is illustrated by experiments grouped 

 in Table 17. When an egg with a green white was received in a cup already holding 

 one or more good eggs, the green-white egg was poured off and the eggs remaining were 

 collected and examined. The bacterial findings, as given in Table 17, show that 

 the bacteria from the green eggs contaminated the good eggs, the extent of which is 

 brought out by comparing the counts of the commercial product of the house made at 

 the same time as the experiments under consideration. It was against the rules of the 

 breaking room to use any liquid egg out of the shell which had been in contact with a 

 bad egg. The bacterial variation in the regular product was from 140,000 to 1,500,000 

 per gram; the lowest finding for the good eggs in contact with a green-white egg was 

 1,200,000, and the maximum was 35,000,000. This principle holds true for any highly 

 infected egg in contact with a good egg, and effectually disposes of the habit of pouring 

 out the visible portions of the bad egg and using the rest. 



The product. — Two series of experiments were made on different days, tracing the 

 egg step by step from the first pail to the final dried product. The results of these 

 experiments, as listed in Table E-I (Appendix, p. 66), under visit No. 1, showed 

 that the sources of contamination existing in 1911 had been eliminated except in one 

 instance — namely, the brushes used to spread the egg on the drying belt. Even here 

 the total count did not rise, but there was an appreciable increase in the number of 

 B. coli. There is a discrepancy in the number of bacteria reported in this sequence 

 of samples. This is due, probably, to the fact that they were taken at the outset of 

 the work before the routine of taking and handling samples was established . Too much 



