92 CLEAN MILK 



ing absorbents, as above, and occasionally sprinkling 5 per cent, 

 creolin solution in the gutters (if of wood), the stable may be kept 

 clean. Sprinkling woods ashes and slaked lime in the trenches 

 daily after removal of manure, is of service. The germs of tuber- 

 culosis escape from the tuberculous cow chiefly in the manure and 

 in this way contaminate the milk — unless great cleanliness is used. 

 Thus, in 24 cows apparently healthy, but shown by the tuberculin 

 test to be tuberculous, Schroeder found 40% were expelling tubercle 

 bacilli in the manure; while 6 cows, sick some 3 years with tuber- 

 culosis, were all thus expelling tubercle bacilli. This is still another 

 reason for the avoidance of contamination of milk with manure. 

 The dried manure containing tuberculous germs floats about in the 

 dust of a barn and infects healthy animals which breathe it in. 



Experiments performed at Washington show that baboons fed 

 milk from tuberculous cows develop tuberculosis almost as rapidly 

 and as certainly as when tubercle bacilli obtained from a tuberculous 

 human being are injected into the animal. This proves that the 

 baboon — and presumably man — is as susceptible to the bovine as 

 to the human type of tuberculosis germ. 



Flies convey germs to the milk and annoy cattle. The average 

 number of bacteria carried by each fly is about one million and a 

 quarter, as shown in the examination of 414 flies for bacteria at 

 the Storrs Experiment Station (Bull. 51). Where there is a pig 

 pen or exposed manure pile the proportion of harmful bacteria 

 (coli-aerogenes type) is very large. In fact, flies are the chief 

 source of the contamination of milk with the latter type of germs, 

 and these are the cause of diarrheal diseases and infant mortality. 

 Therefore, to prevent infant mortality, attack the fly and prevent 

 its contact with milk. Many of the preparations for spraying cows 

 with the purpose of keeping off flies are of great service, and are 

 widely advertised in the agricultural journals. Shutters are useful 

 in hot weather to darken the stable and, with netting, aid to keep 



