THE DEVELOPMENT OF CITY MILK SUPPLY ~ 
PROBLEMS 
H. A. Harpine 
While records of fermentative changes in milk and its 
products extend back practically to the dawn of history, little 
significance can be attached to observations of the details of 
germ life in the dairy prior to the beginning of modern bacter- 
iological technique in 1881.1 
About 1890 there was a widespread development of in- 
terest regarding germ life in the dairy. Adametz? in Austria 
and de Freudenreich? in Switzerland were then at work on 
cheese problems, Storch* in Denmark and Weigmann® in 
Germany were busy with the relations between germ life and 
flavors in butter, while in America Conn* was examining the 
bacteria in cream and Sedgwick’ had made some observations 
on the bacteria in city milk. 
In connection with the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, 
Conn displayed a collection of dairy bacteria illustrating the 
changes which these germs were able to produce in milk and 
cream. Whatever else this exhibit may have accomplished, it 
was an important factor in convincing Dean Henry that 
1R. Koch, Zur Untersuchung von pathogenen Organismen in Mitt, aus 
dem Kaiserl. Gesundheitsamte, 1, pp. 1-18, 1881. 
2L, Adametz, Bakteriologische Untersuchungen iiber den Reifungspro- 
zess der Kiise in Land. Jahr., 18, pp. 227-270, 1889. 
2Hd. v. Freudenreich, Bakteriologische Untersuchungen tiber den Reif- 
angsprozess des Emmenthalerkdses in Milch, Zeit., 21, pp. 368-369, 1892. 
4vV. Storch, 18 Beretning kgl. Veter. og Landbohéjskoles Laborat. f. 
landdkon. Forség. Kjobenhavn., 1890. 
5H. Weigmann, Landw. Wochenbl. f. Schleswig-Holstein, 40, p. 549, 
1890. Also Milch Zeit., 19, p. 598, 1890. 
6H. W. Conn, Bacteria in Milk, Cream and Butter in Storrs Agr. Exp. 
Station Ann. Rept., 2 (1889), 52-67, 1890. 
™W. T, Sedgwick and Batchelder, A Bacteriological Examination of the 
Boston Milk Supply in Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 126, pp. 
25 ff., 1892. 
