IMPURE MILK.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2461, 24 February 1882, Page 4

IMPURE MILK.

Mr Willard, in a lecture upon this su'ijaot, ,gave muoh weight to oauses which effect a deterioration in the quality of milk, and whioh should be carefully considered by consumers. The presence of dirt and dust in the milk-pail, the inhaling of foul odours by the cows, at pasture and elsewhere, and the drinking of putrid water—these are brought forward because they are usually overlooked in the economy of the dairy, Instances are cited in which putrid flesh has communicated a taint to the milk in the udder by simply tainting the air breathed by the oow. Milk in the vat of a cheese factory during the heating of the curd gave off a smell like that of stagnant water. It was found that one of the patrons had allowed his cows to pass through a narrow slough, the mud of whioh adhered to their udders. Particles of dust from this mud got into the pails at milking time, and thus produced fungi from the slough, whioh multiplied in the milk and •poiled the whole of it, giving it the odour of foul water. Professor Law, of Cornell UniTewity, finding the cream on his milk to be ropy, examined it with a miorosoope, and found it infested with living organisms. On investigation, he found that tho herd from whioh his supply oame drank the water of a stagnant pool located in a muddy swale. Tho microscope exhibited organiams in this water identical with those found in the milk. The same was detected by a microscopic examination of the blood of the cows. That the cows were in a diseased condition was shown by the thermometer test—they being hot and feverish. A little of tho same water was introduced into milk which proper testis had shown to be pare, and in due time the filthy organisms multiplied and took possession of it in vast numbers, producing the same oharaoter of milk as that first noticed. This investigation, made by a oloae observer, goes to prove that the germs of a milk spoiling ferment can be introduced into the blood and into the udder by simply allowing the oow to drink impure water. It shows that the cleanliness of the dairy must be radical, thorough, and all perwading. No filthy mud should be allowed to dry into dust that may foul the pail; no foul odours should taint the undrawn milk, and the drinking water should be free from the little " leaven that Icaveneth the whole lump" —oow, milk and all.