MILK FOOD AND ITS HYGIENIC MARKETING. 
95 
MILK FOOD AND ITS HYGIENIC MARKETING. 
By E. B. Ackerman, D. V. S., Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Read before the February Meeting of the New York County Veterinary Medical 
Association. 
Dairy husbandry has been an industry of the people of all 
countries and of all times, and its production of milk as an arti¬ 
cle of human food may well be given the place of most impor¬ 
tance. Physiologically it contains all the proximate principles 
to support life readily assimilated by the human organism. 
The child begins its career upon milk, and much of its 
future depends upon the quality, both from a chemico-physio- 
logical and patho-bacteriological point of view. Aside from the 
child, it is largely consumed by the well and strong, not to 
forget the invalid, where it is second in importance to child 
feeding. 
It has been said that the milk supply of this country for a 
year amounts to 5,210,000,000 gallons, while in Greater New 
York City the daily supply amounts to 750,000 quarts. Our 
large cities spend millions of dollars annually upon its water 
supply. This, of course, is a necessary expense, but equal in 
importance is the milk supply from the standpoint of public 
health, and upon this they begrudgingly spend a few meagre 
thousands. 
Milk, of course, both from its origin and its composition is 
an animal food, and it has long been recognized even by sav¬ 
ages that a preparatory treatment (which we call cooking) is 
necessary before animal foods are ready for use. This fact was 
probably forced upon the savages by unpleasant consequences of 
eatiug this food raw. This preparatory treatment is necessary to 
destroy the various harmful forms of low life which frequently 
accompany animal foods. The germ theory of disease has shown 
us that many of the forms of disease most fatal to human life 
are due to these organisms, which are generally known as bac¬ 
teria or microbes. It was not until the year 1870 that milk 
was generally considered capable of carrying epidemic diseases, 
