CHAPTER XXXVIII 



DISEASE BACTERIA IN MILK 



Milk may servel as a carrier of disease germs, and 

 may become the cause of sickness for single individuals 

 or for large numbers of people. Tuberculosis, typhoid, 

 diphtheria, scarlet fever, and various intestinal dis- 

 turbances are more or less frequently produced by in- 

 fected milk. The subject is one of vast significance to 

 public hygiene, and is receiving the attention of sani- 

 tarians in all progressive communities. 



Tuberculosis. — In some of our dairy states, tubercu- 

 losis is very prevalent among milch cows. Apart from 

 the enormous losses sustained by the dairy interests in 

 the gradual wasting away and final death of these cattle, 

 the question as to the relation of bovine and human 

 tuberculosis is becoming more and more insistent. How 

 many of the thousands of adults and children carried 

 off annually by this dread disease are infected from milk ? 

 Unfortunately, the facts in our possession do not per- 

 mit us to give a definite answer as yet to this question. 

 We know only that market milk frequently contains 

 living tubercle bacilli, which, in some instances at least, 

 find lodgment in the human system and produce the 

 characteristic disease. 



The milk secreted by tuberculous cows does not 



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