82 
TYPHOID FEVER IX DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
Willem and Miele“ (1905) obtained a milk containing 2.5 bacteria 
per cubic centimeter. The milking was done in a special place, which 
was kept as aseptic as possible. The greatest care was taken to 
insure the cows being clean. The udder and teats were washed 
before each milking with soap and boiled water or an aseptic 
solution. 
From the examples quoted we see that it is practically impossible 
to obtain bacteria-free milk but that the organisms in carefully 
collected milk are not pathogenic to the usual laboratory animals. 
We may allow, then, that the presence of such organisms in reasonable 
number would not render a milk harmful to man. Lux’s experi- 
ments have shown that with very ordinary care it is possible to 
obtain a milk containing on an average 1,400 bacteria per cubic 
centimeter and it is obvious that ^vith very slight trouble the number 
may be much reduced. 
The work of Park^ (1901), Nicolle and Petit (1903), Conn and 
Esten^ (1904), Koning^ (1905), F. C. Harrison-^ (1905), and others 
has shovm that if milk be rapidly cooled to 11° C., or below, very 
little if any multiplication of organisms takes place for some twelve 
hours. Therefore Park’s suggested average standard of not more than 
12.000 bacteria per cubic centimeter in warm, and 5,000 per cubic 
centimeter, in cold weather for freshly drawn milk seems a generous 
standard and one which, with a little care, should be easily attained. 
It is necessar^^ to note that ‘^separator milk” must not be judged 
bv the same standard as fresh milk, for Severin and Budinoff^ 
(1905) and Severin^ have shown that, even when every possible pre- 
caution is taken against contamination, the milk issuing from the 
separator always contains many more bacteria than it did before it 
passed into the separating chamber. Severin suggests that the 
mechanical movement completes the separation of bacteria which 
were only partially divided when they entered the machine. 
It may be of interest to mention that Jenson* (1903) states that 
the results of the Copenhagen Hygiene Commission showed that of 
142 samples of pasteurized milk 98 samples contained more than 
100.000 microbes per cubic centimeter. 
« Willem and Miele. Rev. gen. du Lait, p. 409. Ref. -Bull, de I’lnst. Pasteur, vol. 
3, p. 725. 
& Park, W. H. Journ. hyg., vol. 1, p. 391. 
c Nicolle, C., and Petit, P. Revue med. de Normand., Dec. 25, 1903. Ref. -Bull, 
de rinst. Pasteur, vol. 2, p. 552. 
Conn, H. W., and Esten, W. M. Reprints of studies from Rockefeller Institute 
for med. research., 1904. 
eKoning. Centlblt. f. bakt., Abt. 2, Bd. 14, p. 424. 
/Harrison, F. C. Centblt. f. bakt., Abt. 2, Bd. 14, p. 359. 
Severin, S., and Budinoff, L. Centblt. f. bakt., Abt., 2, Bd. 14, p. 463. 
^Severin, S. Ibid, p. 605. 
* Jensen, C. O. Ibid., p. 228. 
