go ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN^ ASSOCIATION. 
One point remains to be fully determined. Does milk,in common 
with other fluids, secreted within the body of an animal, contain, be¬ 
fore it reaches the external air, the germs which by development and 
multiplication may cause the changes usually observed? In cases of 
disease living germs are often found in all the animal fluids and 
peculiar phenomena have been witnessed in such fluids after extrac¬ 
tion and exposure.* On the other hand one looks in vain with the 
aid of the best microscopic instruments for such living particles in 
the same fluids from animals in perfect health ; at least this has been 
the case in the personal observations of the writer. Blood has been 
drawn with instruments made for the purpose and kept absolutely 
free from living organisms, though not excluded from other agencies 
to which fermentation is assigned, and preserved indefinitely without 
heating above the normal temperature of the animal from which it. 
came. There can scarcely be a question but that in the case of per¬ 
fectly healthy cows, fed upon proper diet and drinking pure water, 
the milk would forever keep sweet and good, if preserved from 
contact and inoculation with living germs after it leaves the udder. 
This latter, it is true, is a difficult accomplishment, but, as an experi¬ 
ment, it can be done, and we certainly would be unwise to assert that 
it will never be done in a simple and practical manner adapted to 
ordinary use. Some simple device may overcome the almost insur¬ 
mountable obstacle now met with, and introduce a new era in the 
dairy business and household economy, leaving us all to wonder why 
it was not thought of sooner. Indeed much progress has already 
been made in this direction, attained for the most part by common 
observation and practice. Thoroughly scalding the vessels-and this 
just before as well as just after use-keeping everything clean, and 
especially free from decomposing substances, beginning with the 
stable and ending with the arrangements for final disposition of the 
products, the lowering of the temperature, and finally the introduc¬ 
tion of some tasteless and harmless antiseptic materials as dilute 
solutions of thymol, boracic and salicylic acids—all looking towards 
^Professor Orth, of Gottengen, Germany, says : “ Recent researches leave no doubt 
whatever that in some diseases the blood contains dunngjife, though to a far higher degr 
aft " says'ihe germ theory of disease « is now 
established ^on^firmexpennt ^ p rofessor Strieker, of Vienna, find low plants, fiingi, in 
the blood of patients suffering from relapsing fever , mnclusion 
Dr Neftel of New York, says : “ My experiments so far lead me to the conclusion 
that the lower vegetable organisms ean continue to live and multiply in the tissues of living 
animals.’' ^ Richards on, of the University of Pennsylvania, reports the experiment of 
swallowing bacteria and afterwards finding numbers of them in the blood drawn from 
finger. 
