i66 MAINE) AGRICUI.TURAI, e;xpe;rimsnt statioj^. 



CREAMERY SANITATION. 



No class of foods is more universally used than the kind 

 known as dairy products — milk, cream and butter. Milk is used 

 not only in every household either in cooking or as a food by 

 itself, or both, but it is used more extensively than any other 

 one thing as a food for infants and invalids. Without question, 

 therefore, these products should be as clean and pure and whole- 

 some as it is possible for them to be produced. Unfortunately 

 it is a fact that milk and cream are among the best mediums 

 known for the growth and multiplication of bacteria of all kinds, 

 including those responsible for tuberculosis, typhoid fever, scar- 

 let fever, and many other diseases. It has been repeatedly 

 demonstrated that epidemics of typhoid fever and other diseases 

 have been spread by means of a contaminated milk supply, and it 

 is possible for milk to receive this contamination not only at the 

 dairy where it is produced but at any point during its manipula- 

 tion or transportation before it reaches the customer. The dust 

 of the city streets contains the germs of tuberculosis from the 

 dried sputum of people in all stages of tuberculosis; flies swarm 

 upon such sputum and frequent outhouses, closets, stables, and 

 all -kinds of refuse and decaying matter and whatever happens 

 to be present in the way of bacteria is carried upon the flies to 

 whatever food products they may next go. If the creameries 

 where milk is received, strained, separated, churned, etc., are 

 not well screened flies will be found in great abundance in every 

 such place. If there is in the near neighborhood any possible 

 chance for these flies to become infested with germs of disease 

 they will bring these germs into the creamery and to the milk 

 itself. If the creamery is located upon a city street from which 

 the dust blows in clouds upon a breezy day, here again the 

 danger of contamination is ever present. 



A few years ago the fly was looked upon as a nuisance surely 

 but not as a danger. It is now known that the fly is the most 

 dangerous menace to the public health with which we have to 



