34 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 
is the recognition of the fact that milk is the most available 
source of certain substances indispensable to the growth of 
the young and the well being of the adult. Much of the 
study of these important, compounds designated as ‘‘fat 
soluble a’’ and ‘‘water soluble b’’ has been conducted at Wis- 
consin.’* The nutritive importance of these compounds is 
emphasized by the fact that recent studies of pellagra make 
it evident that milk is practically a specific for this disease. 
Pellagra in this country in a single year is variously estimated 
at between 150,000 and 200,000 cases, with a mortality of ap- 
proximately 5 per cent. These figures suggest that there is 
more disease and death in this country every year from the 
failure to use sufficient milk than results from the use of bad 
milk. While this fact should not militate against all reason- 
able efforts to improve the quality of the present milk supply, 
it should lead to vigorous efforts to increase the consumption 
of fluid milk. 
Tur PROBLEM OF HEALTHFULNESS 
Healthfulness as here applied to milk refers to the absence 
of germs capable of transmitting specific diseases. 
The early objections to watering and skimming of milk 
were based in part upon the supposition that such practices 
rendered the milk unhealthful. When carried to such lengths 
as to reduce the amount of food received by the child below 
a maintenance ration this conception is in a sense correct. 
However, in modern thinking these practices are objected to 
rather as a fraud in that they reduce the food value which 
the purchaser receives. 
Tuberculin as a means of diagnosing bovine tuberculosis 
was just beginning to be tried in 1893. A test of the Wisconsin 
Experiment Station herd showed it to be largely tuberculous. 
Dr. Russell immediately took an important part in the strug- 
“ELV. McCollum, The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition, MacMillan, 1918. 
% J, Goldberger, G. A. Wheeler and E. Sydenstricker, A Study of the 
Dict of Nonpelagrous and of Pelagrous Households in Textile Mill Com- 
He Siac in, South Carolina in Jour, Amer. Med. Asso., 71, pp. 944-949, 
