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healthful beverage, by reason of the fact that the lactic-acid-pro- 
ducing bacteria tend by their growth in the intestine to lessen intes- 
tinal putrefaction, thereby diminishing the tendency to autoin- 
toxications from substances resulting from the growth of the bac- 
terial flora normally present in the intestine. One the other hand, 
it not infrequently happens that fresh milk becomes contaminated 
with toxic substances, or with toxicogenic bacteria, in which event 
the milk may give rise to acute intoxications. The subject of milk 
poisoning has been chiefly studied by Vaughan and his associates, 
and to him we owe the term Galactotoxismus. In spite of all that 
has been done, however, the subject of milk poisoning is as j^et but 
very imperfectly understood. Chiefly through the labors of Vaughan 
(2) and his coworkers, together with observations by Sonnenberger 
(3) , Le Blanc (4), Baird (5), and others, it is now known that milk 
may acquire poisonous properties and become dangerous to health 
in essentially five distinct ways: 
First. It may absorb metallic poisons from metallic vessels in 
which it has been allowed to stand. Attention has already been 
called to the fact that Golding and Feilmann (6) found copper in 
milk which had stood in contact with a broken copper coil. In this 
connection Baird (5) attributed an outbreak of milk poisoning to 
the preservation of milk in metal vessels, and pointed out that the 
substitution of earthenware vessels brought about a cessation of the 
trouble. Sonnenberger (3) has also observed that milk allowed to 
sour in vessels of copper, zinc, etc., is apt to contain soluble, poisonous 
salts of these metals. f 
Second. Through the elimination of poisonous drugs from the 
mother through the milk. As Sonnenberger (3) has pointed out, 
many drugs administered by the mouth appear in large quantity in 
the milk. Among such he cites ether, arsenic, alcohol, lead, col- 
chicum, euphorbin, iodine, morphine, salicylic acid, hemlock, mercury, 
turpentine, antimony, veratrine, and a great variety of salts. He 
calls attention to the fact that all such milks are dangerous to children 
and young animals, and recommends that milk from cows receiving 
active drugs should not be allowed to be sold. 
The excretion of drugs in the milk of nursing women has recently 
been made the subject of an exhaustive investigation by Bucura (7). 
According to this author, the number of drugs which have been found 
in human milk with certainty, following their administration to the 
mother, are very few. He himself investigated the excretion of 
forty of the drugs most commonly used on women during and after 
childbirth, and of these he found that only five or six could be recog- 
nized in the milk with certainty. These were aspirin, iodine, calomel 
(when taken internally), arsenious acid, potassium bromide, and 
probably also urotropin. From his own work and that of others, he 
