982 
ANDREW HYDE. 
Connecticut is one of the States without a milk standard 
law, although it has the distinction of having had such a law 
among its statutes for six days in 1895. A very good law was 
passed by the General Assembly in 1895 and approved June 28. 
A repealing act, however, was passed and approved July 4, fol¬ 
lowing. 
If by the better methods in dairy management and improved 
breeds of cows’ milk containing 13 or 13.50 per cent, of total 
solids can be regularly produced, a legal standard requiring 
such quality would not be a hardship on the honest vendor, 
while it would tend to eliminate the unscrupulous one from 
the business. It should be borne in mind that a low standard, 
as well as no standard, acts as a premium on poor milk. 
BACTERIA OF MILK. 
Milk secreted by the healthy gland is pure, but shortly 
after becomes contaminated with bacteria to a greater or less 
extent. This bacterial infection constitutes the chief impurity 
of milk, assuming, of course, that the straining process has 
been sufficient to remove ordinary stable dirt that almost in¬ 
evitably gets into it, and that adulterants have not been used. 
It has been determined by experimentation that all of these 
impurities can be kept out of milk by the practice of suitable 
sanitary regulation and pasteurization. Indeed, it has been 
found in quite recent observations by E. A. de Schweinitz that 
some milk produced under sanitary regulation, was almost free 
from bacteria. This should go far toward emphasizing the 
value of control of the dairy, stables, and places where milk is 
kept for sale. 
The bacterial flora of milk have been extensively studied 
by competent investigators and the species and numbers, and 
many of their effects upon milk are now a matter of common 
knowledge among them. Gactic acid fermentation, the most 
common change of milk, which produces souring, is due to 
bacterial development. The old belief was that early souring 
was due to thundery weather, something the cow had eaten, or 
that she was sick. The common idea is that the bitter taste 
