APPLYING ELECTRICITY TO MILK.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 541, 12 February 1913, Page 6

APPLYING ELECTRICITY TO MILK.

American journals record some interesting experiments conducted by Dr Novey and Professor Caldwell at the Ohio State University on the electrifying purification of milk. Their method is to allow the milk to flow through a series of metal vessels which form electrodes of opposite polarity, while an alternating current of 2.5 amperes at a pressure of 2000 volts is applied for fitfeen seconds. The results were that milk containing over 19,000,000 bacteria per cub c centimetre, tia.l this number reduced by 99.97 percent., and several other similar experiments gave results of the same magnitude. The milk showed no chemical changes that would account for the sterilisation, nor was the heating that took place sufficient for this purpose. It would seem that further investigation on these lines might lead to a method of value in the production of the all-im-portant pure milk. The method apparently has the advantage that it might be applied equally readily to large or small quantities of milk. Moreover, if applied on a large scale, it ought to be the most economical method of producing safe milk. As no chemical changes are found to occur in the milk as the result of the electrolysis, its nutritive value and aesthetic properties remain unchanged. It will, be necessary, of course, to ensure that it is not specially the pathogenic bacteria, such as the tubercle bacilli, which are unaffected.