PASTEURIZATION VERSUS PURITY. 
33 
“ Walker Gordon ” dairy farms, where every precaution known 
to modern science is taken to prevent contamination. Such a 
milk may be regarded as above suspicion, but, unfortunately, the 
amount of it produced as compared with the total supply is but 
as a drop in the bucket. It has occurred to ns that in the 
present condition of our milk supply it is unwise to condemn 
Pasteurization and that it is the most valuable means we possess 
of safeguarding one of our most important food products. Milk 
is one of the most favorable mediums for the growth of bacteria. 
As produced and sold in the ordinary way it literally swarms 
with them. Samples taken at random from the milk supplied 
to any of our large cities will show anywhere from 500,000 to 
1,500,000 bacteria per cubic centimetre. A large number of the 
bacteria found in milk are such as cause the usual acid fermen¬ 
tation which occurs when milk turns sour, but there are many 
species which ought to be excluded, arising from mouldy hay, 
straw or fodder, partially decayed roots and the natural decay of 
the woodwork of the barn and adjoining buildings. Many of 
these bacteria cause alkaline fermentation and other abnormal 
conditions of milk. 
The question is often asked—why are we not all destroyed 
by the countless numbers of microbes that are in the air we 
breathe, in the water we drink and in the food which we 
swallow? Dr. H. Beauregard, an eminent physician of Paris, 
in an article on “ Microbes and Man ” in the Revue Pedagogique^ 
a translation of which appears in the Literary Digest of Jan. 5, 
1898, has shown that the human body is perfectly organized to 
resist the different phases of the attacks of the microbes and has 
also shown how we may succumb to them. “ Before reaching 
us they have already encountered conditions which put them in 
a certain measure in a state of inferiority. The oxygen of the 
air and light are agents which injnre their vitality. From this 
fact arises the importance of hygiene. Having reached the 
skin, microbes find an efficacious barrier in the cells of the epi¬ 
dermis, of which those on the surface are horny and in a con¬ 
tinual state of desquamation. This may be called the physical 
