pasteurized milk 75 



Advantages of Pasteueization. 



The following arguments are presented in favor of the 

 use of pasteurized miLk; 



1. Protection from pathogenic bacteria occasionally 



found in milk. 



2. A decrease in the total number of bacteria. 



3. Aids in the preservation of milk. 



1 . Protection from Pathogenic Bacteria. — Epidemics, 

 such as t}-phoid fever, diphtheria and scarlet fever, are 

 on record as having been transmitted through milk, as 

 has already been mentioned in Chapter IV. Several in- 

 vestigations of market milk have revealed the presence 

 of the tubercle bacillus in approximately 10 per cent of 

 the dairies. There is strong evidence showing that these 

 diseases, under certain conditions, may be transmitted 

 to the consumer. This danger may be obviated and the 

 public protected by efficient pasteurization of the entire 

 city milk supply. All of these pathogenic germs are 

 destroyed by pasteurization, as they are not spore forming. 



2. Decreases the Total Number of Bacteria. — ]\Iilk as 

 a food is of greatest importance to the welfare of chil- 

 dren, and the decrease of infant mortality is one of the 

 virtues claimed for pasteurized milk. 



We have already seen in a previous chapter how the 

 Nathan Straus milk depots alleviated infantile gastro-mesen- 

 teric iUness, and how the installation of a pasteurizing plant 

 at the Children's Home on Randall Island, New York City, 

 decreased the annual death rate. Many similar instances 

 of the benefits of milk pasteurization may be mentioned. 



Variot distributed for 12 years in the poorest quarters 

 of Paris about 400,000 bottles of pasteurized milk to more 

 than 3000 infants, and reports that there was never a single 



