FILTH AS infants' FOOD 109 



to be said of the milk which goes into thousands, 

 aye millions, of American homes to be used as a food 

 lor infants, that it is reeking with filth, some of it of 

 an unmentionable character. Much more terrible 

 is the fact that much of it is charged with the germs 

 of the worst diseases that scourge mankind. To 

 go back to our study of the conditions on Farmer 

 Jackson's farm for a moment, it was impossible to 

 teU from their appearance whether the cows were 

 all healthy or not. What if some of them had 

 tuberculous udders and milk ducts, so that the milk 

 inevitably contained the tubercle bacilli in large 

 numbers? Or what if the cows had been wading 

 through water polluted by typhoid germs, or if there 

 were typhoid germs in the water Bill used to rinse 

 the milk pails, and some of these remained in the 

 pails to infect the milk and to multiply therein? 

 These things happen sometimes, you know. And 

 what if Bill's clothing or his person should have in- 

 fected the milk with the germs of diphtheria, or scarlet 

 fever, brought by accident from the bedside where 

 his little daughter tossed and moaned all the night 

 - before ? You cannot blame Bill for nursing his little 

 girl, nor yet for being ignorant of the fact that he 

 might carry the germs of the disease in his clothing, 

 to drop later into the milk pail and from thence to 

 spread the disease lijie a plague in some far-off city. 

 This is a very black picture, well calculated to 



