152 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



Whether the milk which we ourselves drink is clean 

 or unclean; whether we take into our systems only 

 nourishment when we drink a glass of milk, or the 

 germs of virulent diseases which may at any time 

 find in some weak spot the soil fitted for their para- 

 sitic existence, so that they blossom in deadly ill- 

 nesses; whether we drink only a pure, Ufe-giving 

 beverage or a polluted mess, reeking with the filth of 

 sewers, — are questions of very great importance. We 

 wake to a recognition of their terrible significance only 

 when disease and death ravage our cities, when great 

 epidemics of typhoid or some other milk-borne dis- 

 ease menace our lives. 



But epidemics come and go, and with their going 

 we are prone to forget that the enemy is ambushed 

 and always ready to make a new attack. We forget 

 that it comes silently and swiftly and that "eternal 

 vigilance is the price of hberty" in this as in every 

 other human struggle. During the epidemic which 

 raged in Chicago less than a year ago, I talked with 

 a citizen of that city who was in a perfect rage over 

 the peril which had come to every door in the city 

 •as a result of the neglect of the milk supply by the 

 authorities. A few months later, I met the same man 

 again and spoke of the importance of milk inspection. 

 But he was not interested as before. Then he was 

 literally afire with indignation and protest, but on 

 the second meeting he was apathetic and cool. The 



