
APPLICATIONS OF BACTERIOLOGY IN EUROPE. iJ) 
ments made. From time to time an inspection by paid off- 
cials is made in all of the dairies which furnish the milk. The 
institution of Bolle spends $15,000 a year in official inspection 
among the dairies of its patrons. 
The milk is carefully tested, both chemically and as to 
temperature, when it reaches the distributing factory in the 
city. In some cases every can of milk brought in is tasted 
by experts to determine whether there is any trouble appre- 
ciable to the tongue. The milk is commonly filtered or run 
through a centrifugal machine, and large quantities of milk 
derived from a great variety of sources are thoroughly mixed 
together in order to insure an almost absolutely uniform 
product. The greatest care is taken in sterilizing the bottles 
in which the milk is distributed, or the milk cans in which it 
is stored. 
If a contagious disease occurs on a farm, the attempt is 
made to stop the reception of milk from the farm in question 
for a length of time which appears to be necessary. Some of 
the companies even go so far as to pay the farmer for the milk 
during the whole of the time in which the milk is refused at 
the factory because of such infectious disease, a kindness which 
is sometimes abused by the farmer. If an infectious disease 
should appear in the family of one of the employes of such an 
institution, the individuals of the family are not allowed to 
have anything more to do with the handling of the milk until 
complete recovery takes place. In some cases this attempt 
to prevent distribution of contagious diseases goes so far that 
if an infectious disease occurs in the family of one of the con- 
sumers of the milk, the milk is no longer delivered to the 
family in question from the ordinary miulk-distributing cart, 
but a special messenger is sent from the factory to such houses, 
the belief being that by such means any possible danger of 
distributing the disease from house to house is prevented. 
Most of these institutions have chemical laboratories, and 
some of them have bacteriological laboratories, where the 
character of the milk is studied and where the infectiousness 
of the milk, so far as its effect upon animals is concerned, can 
be investigated. In some of them, careful observations are 
being made to determine whether their milk is the cause of 
the distribution of tuberculosis. Up to the present time, so far 
as I am aware, no attempt is made to use tuberculin among the 
cattle for the purpose of excluding from the milk ech such 
animals as may react to this test. 
