106 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



we should probably find that it contained at least 

 five million bacteria for each cubic centimeter, or 

 quarter-teaspoonful ! When the milk was drawn 

 from the cow it was contaminated in the process, and 

 further contamination has occurred at every step 

 since. What was, in the cow's udder, a sterile and 

 pure liquid, through human carelessness and ignorance 

 is now a polluted, dangerous mixture. But the milk 

 is not yet at the end of its journey. Before it reaches 

 the child who is to be nourished by it, there are other 

 fertile sources of contamination. In the little grocery 

 store in the tenement district, and then later, in the 

 foul-smeUing mockery of a refrigerator in the baby's 

 home, millions of new germs will be added to the 

 milk by addition from without and by natural in- 

 crease; by unrestricted immigration and by the nor- 

 mal excess of births over deaths, so to speak. 



In Mrs. Goldstein's little grocery store, on Allen 

 Street, you can buy almost anything, from a pail 

 of coal to five cents' worth of cooked meat; from 

 a package of pins to a pair of shoes for the baby. 

 The long, dark, stuffy little store is, in its way, as 

 many-sided as the big department store on Broadway. 

 Naturally, Mrs. Goldstein sells milk, for only the 

 aristocratic and "stuck up" folks can afford to buy 

 bottle milk and have it left at the door. Poor folks 

 must buy their milk at the store. It costs two cents 

 a quart less, and you don't have to buy a quart if 



