GERMS IN RELATION TO MILK 3 



Heretofore, when milk was regarded in the same light as any- 

 other food, the law required simply that it should not be adulterated 

 and that it should contain a quantity of food-constituents equivalent 

 to the minimum standard in force. Now, however, it has come to 

 be realized that of the two the cleanliness of the milk is an hundred- 

 fold more important than its food value. While a milk poor in 

 fat may mean a certain loss of nutriment to one using it, the con- 

 tamination of milk with certain germs may be a matter of life and 

 death to the consumer — particularly if an infant. The sooner the 

 farmer and dairyman realize that the secret of success in the making 

 of milk and milk-products is cleanliness — and by cleanliness we 

 mean essentially methods to prevent the entrance of germs into 

 milk — the better will it be for them and for everyone. 



Germs, or, as they are more technically termed, bacteria, are 

 the most minute forms of plant life we know. They occur in vari- 

 ous shapes, but chiefly in the form of either rods, round cells or 

 spirals. When seen through the microscope they present some- 

 what the appearance of minute lines, balls or cork-screws, accord- 

 ing as they belong to one or the other of these three types. In 

 masses of thousands they may be visible to the naked eye as 

 specks like mold, but singly they can only be seen with a compound 

 microscope magnifying more than 500 times. The most common 

 of all varieties of germs in milk are those which cause it to sour — 

 the lactic acid bacilli (the bacilli are the rod or shaped germs), 

 and these are about 3-25,000 of an inch long and 1-25,000 of 

 an inch broad. Germs grow on vegetable and animal matter, 

 but not in the tissues or cells of living animals or vegetables, al- 

 though they are found on all parts of them exposed to the air. 

 Germs are, in fact, everywhere — in the air, in water, in soil, on the 

 skin and in the digestive canal of animals and on the surface of 

 plants and in dust. Professor Conn has found as many as 200 

 different kinds of germs in milk alone. Germs propagate by 

 dividing into two equal parts — more usually — which form new 



