Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology / A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.

by George Michael James Giles

—Owing to the fact that, apart from the question of deliberate adulteration, a certain amount of the water used for cleansing and rinsing vessels, &c., generally gains access to milk, it is always open to contamination in the same way as the water supply; and as milk forms an excellent cultivating medium for many sorts of bacteria, their multiplication to a dangerous extent is a very easy matter, so that there is probably no article of food which is so often concerned in the transmission of disease.

The conditions under which cattle are stalled and the milk collected, in the more or less imperfectly civilised countries with which we are concerned, are usually filthy to a degree; and hence it may be laid down as an universal rule that unless one’s dairy is under one’s own personal supervision milk should always be either boiled or systematically “sterilised” before using. There are a number of excellent appliances in the market for sterilising milk, and as directions for their employment always accompany them, it is unnecessary to occupy space with any instructions as to their use.

Unfortunately it is by no means certain that boiled or sterilised milk is as wholesome and digestible as the natural untreated article, and that there is a distinct, and slightly disagreeable, alteration of taste cannot be denied. It has been asserted that infants fed exclusively on sterilised milk are liable to be attacked by a form of scurvy, though it does not appear quite established that the possible sophistication of the milk in other ways has been excluded in the instances that have been reported, and it is undeniable that large numbers of infants thrive excellently on milk so treated. In any case, the risks of harm accruing to either infants or adults from the use of sterilised milk are absurdly small in comparison with those with which they are threatened by the consumption of milk, produced under conditions over which no supervision can be exercised.

Apart, moreover, from the dangers of filth and infection, the milk supplied by native cow-keepers is nearly always of poor quality owing to niggardliness and ignorance in the feeding of the animals, which are either kept stalled under foully unsanitary conditions, or, on the other hand, may be left to wander about and pick up a living as best they can. When pressed by hunger, there is no fouler feeder than a cow, and it is a dismal fact that, in the polity of an Indian village, the cattle rival the pigs in their efficiency as scavengers, so that from the mere point of nicety it is well, whenever possible, to keep one’s own milch cattle. Cattle kept for milking should always be as carefully groomed and bedded down as one’s most valued horses, and before milking the udders and the hands of the milker should be carefully washed. When it is impossible to keep cows, there is often no difficulty in keeping goats, one or two of which will easily supply sufficient milk for use with tea, in which alone the altered flavour of boiled milk becomes disagreeably perceptible. Goats are extremely hardy, and being naturally clean feeders, require far less attention than cows, while the flavour of their milk in tea is preferred by many to that of cow’s milk. They stand marching well too, and are therefore better suited for use in camp; and as their favourite food is the leaves of bushes they may be trusted to find their living to a great extent as they trot along on their way from camp to camp. Usually their milk agrees excellently with infants, but there can be little doubt that asses’ milk is superior for this purpose.

It is quite a mistake to imagine that it is a sufficient precaution to have a cow brought to the house and milked in one’s presence. Various expedients are known to all cowkeepers whereby the richest part of the milk can be reserved for butter making, and apart from the knowledge of physiological facts which enables this to be done, the native cowkeeper is capable of performing certain small feats of legerdemain by which the milk may be pretty freely diluted under the very eyes of his European customer.

Well aware of the “sahibs’” absurd fad for cleanliness, a native cowkeeper I met with utilised our weakness in that respect to perform a very clever trick. He always brought with him a bowl of clean water, with which he ostentatiously washed the udders of the cow, and while milking, on the pretext that a cool hand was necessary for the process, he occasionally dipped his really well washed hands into the bowl. Hidden in the palm, however, was a piece of sponge, which was squeezed against the udder in the action of milking, so that its contents mingled with the milk as it jetted into the can, and by frequently repeating the cooling process, he was able to dilute the milk to a very profitable extent. It is well, therefore, to occasionally test the quality of milk, and this is better done by noting the depth of cream that rises in a given long, narrow glass, than by any of the so-called lactometers, as they really only test the specific gravity of the milk, as they afford no sure index of the amount of fatty matter present, and it is on this that the main nutritive properties of milk depends.

For the use of infants on voyages, unconcentrated sterilised milk should always be used, as it is much less altered by the process than is the case with the “condensed” article, even when the latter is honestly and carefully prepared. This, however, is far from being even generally the case, as very often the milk has been skimmed before concentration, and large numbers of cases of malnutrition among infants are due to this cause, as the material lends itself easily to the perpetration of despicable frauds of this sort, which appear to be sometimes practised even by large and much advertised concerns. In the case of unconcentrated sterilised milk on the other hand, the substitution of skim milk can be detected at a glance.

Butter.

—Containing as it does a considerable proportion of unaltered milk and whey, butter is open to the same dangers as the milk from which it is prepared, and it is therefore equally risky to obtain it from uncertain sources, so that, where these are doubtful, it is better to have it made in the house.

Butter can be easily made on a small scale, by shaking cream in a wide-mouthed bottle, or by beating it with a fork, and as it tastes none the worse for being made from boiled milk, and the poorness or otherwise of the latter only affects the yield of butter, there is no need of any great caution as to the source of supply for this purpose. It should be needless to remark that all vessels used for setting the cream and for other purposes in the process should be kept scrupulously clean, and be frequently scalded, as success is impossible without minute precautions in this respect.