248 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



Here is milk which, if properly drawn from a healthy 

 cow, under hygienic conditions, would be clean, 

 sterile, and free from disease germs. Not being so 

 drawn, however, it is foul and teeming with germ 

 life, some of which may be fatal to a child. There 

 are the germs of diseases from which the cow suffers, 

 and germs of diseases from which human beings 

 coming into more or less direct contact with the 

 milk suffer. Granted that " cooking " the milk does 

 not make it clean, it at least kills the gernas. Granted, 

 too, that some of the germs are harmless, that some 

 of them may even be helpful to the digestive processes, 

 it is best to kill them all if that is the only way of 

 destroying the dangerous germs once they are in the 

 milk. The gain which ensues from the destruction 

 of the dangerous germs far more than compensates 

 for any loss which may result from the destruction 

 of healthful germs that are aids to the digestive 

 system. And in support of this contention they 

 point to the impressive and convincing figures which 

 show the reduction made by pasteurizing their milk 

 in the mortality of infants. 



It will be seen that there is no criticism of the 

 position of the radicals in this, except that it is Uto- 

 pian and idealistic. The advocates of pasteuriza- 

 tion have no attack to make upon their rivals of 

 the clean milk school, their only criticism being that 

 they are holding out an ideal that is unattainable 



