Bo ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN's ASSOCIATION. 



One point remains to be fully determined. Does milk,in common 

 with other fluids, secreted within the body of an animal, contain, be- 

 fore it reaches the external air, the germs which by development and 

 multiplication may cause the changes usually observed ? In cases of 

 disease living germs are often found in all the animal fluids and 

 peculiar phenomena have been witnessed in such fluids after extrac- 

 tion and exposure.* On the other hand one looks in vain with the 

 aid of the best microscopic instruments for such living particles in 

 the same fluids from animals in perfect health ; at least this has been 

 the case in the personal observations of the writer. Blood has been 

 drawn with instruments made for the purpose and kept absolutely 

 free from living organisms, though not excluded from other agencies 

 to which fermentation is assigned, and preserved indefinitely without 

 heating above the normal temperature of the animal from which it 

 came. There can scarcely be a question but that in the case of per- 

 fectly healthy cows, fed upon proper diet and drinking pure water, 

 the milk would forever keep sweet and good, if preserved from 

 contact and inoculation with living germs after it leaves the udder. 

 This latter, it is true, is a difficult accomplishment, but, as an experi- 

 ment, it can be done, and we certainly would be unwise to assert that 

 it will never be done in a simple and practical manner adapted to 

 ordinary use. Some simple device may overcome the almost insur- 

 mountable obstacle now met with, and introduce a new era in the 

 dairy business and household economy, leaving us all to wonder why 

 it was not thought of sooner. Indeed much progress has already 

 been made in this direction, attained for the most part by common 

 observation and practice. Thoroughly scalding the vessels — and this 

 just before as well as iust after use — keeping everything clean, and 

 especially free from decomposing Fubstances, beginning with the 

 stable and ending with the arrangements for final disposition of the 

 products, the lowering of the temperature, and finally the introduc- 

 tion of some tasteless and harmless antiseptic materials as dilute 

 solutions of thymol, boracic and salicylic acids — all looking towards 



*Professor Orth, of Gottengen, Germany, says : " Recent researches leave no doubt 

 whatever that in some diseases the blood contains during life, though to a far higher degree 

 after death, certain low forms of animal or vegetable life," 



Dr. Wm. Roberts, of Mancaster, England, says the germ theory of disease " is now 

 established upon a firm experimental basis." 



Dr. Obermeir, of Berlin, and Professor Strieker, of Vienna, find low plants, fungi, in 

 the blood of patients suffering from relapsing lever 



Dr. Neftel, of New York, says : " My experiments so far lead me to the conclusion 

 that the lower vegetable organisms can continue to live and multiply in the tissues of living 

 animals." 



Dr. J. G. Richardson, of the University of Pennsylvania, reports the experiment of 

 swallowing bacteria and afterwards finding numbers of them in the blood drawn from his 

 finger. 



