Rural Hygiene

by Henry N. Ogden

The next factor in the production of clean milk is the condition of the cow herself, not in the matter of her actual health, but in the matter of the cleanliness of her skin at the time the milking is done. If the udder and sides of the cow have been coated with manure, it is certain that more or less will fall into the milk-pail at the time of milking, and the "cowy taste" of the milk is easily accounted for in this way. In a modern stable, the milkman is careful to clean the cow ten or fifteen minutes before the milking is done by sponging or washing her belly, sides, and udder with a damp cloth or with a cloth moistened with a disinfecting solution. In one set of experiments, for instance, 20,000 bacteria per c.c. were found in the milk when the cow was rubbed off before the milking and 170,000 when the preliminary cleaning was omitted. In another case, milk from four dirty cows gave an average of 90,000 bacteria, while other cows of the same herd, milked by the same man, but carefully cleaned before milking, gave only 2000 per c.c. The care involved brings its own reward, and it is in most cases a lack of knowledge or an indifference to results which causes the malign effects above noted.

Only a few weeks ago, the writer watched the hired man start the milking and was disgusted to see the old-fashioned practice followed of squeezing a little milk onto the man's filthy hands and then the handful of milk rubbed around on the cow's teats to drip filthy and bacteria-laden into the milk-pail along with the milk itself.

One other factor is involved which, while scoffed at by some of the old-time farmers, has nevertheless proved its value, and that is the use of the narrow-topped milk-pail. It is startling when tested by bacterial growths under the two conditions to see how many more bacteria will be found in the wide open pail than in the narrow-topped one, and while, of course, some milkers may not be able to use a pail the top of which is only six inches in diameter, it is quite worth while for milkers who do not know how to use a narrow-topped pail to learn.

The size of the opening is not the whole consideration in the matter of the milk-pail. The way it is washed is even more important. If it is merely rinsed out in cold water and then washed in warm water, it is far from clean, and milk poured into such a pail and then poured out will by that process have gathered to itself thousands of bacteria. For example, some experiments have shown that milk in well-washed pails had, on the average, 28,600 bacteria per c.c., while that collected in pails of the same sort under identical conditions, except that the pails had been steamed, contained only 1300 bacteria per c.c.

Perhaps the most important factor in the care of these utensils is the necessity of killing the bacteria left in them by the milk itself. Ordinary washing will not do this. Either the washing must be done with some sterilizing agent, like strong salsoda, which must then, of course, be thoroughly rinsed out, or else the inside of the pail must be filled with absolutely boiling water or with steam. The advantage of the latter is that no contamination is possible by the water itself, whereas in washing out the disinfectant the water, unless pure, contaminates the surface again. To show the effects of clean pails, an experiment was made in which milk was drawn from a cow and found to have 6000 bacteria per c.c. It was then poured rapidly from one to another of six other apparently clean pails. At the end of the sixth pouring, the milk was found to be so changed that the number of bacteria had increased to 98,000 per c.c.

The strainer for a milk-pail is preferably made of cheesecloth, since this can always be easily boiled between milkings, and so sterilized. A wire strainer through which the milk has to pass, and where the milk is often stirred by the finger of the milker to make it pass through more rapidly, is in no sense as satisfactory as cheesecloth.

The straining should be performed as soon as each pail is filled with milk, and pails of milk should never be allowed to stand around in the barn back of the cows, but rather should be taken at once to the milk-room, where it can be strained before any further contamination takes place.

Then the milk should be cooled, and this, to be effective, must be done in such a way that the temperature of the milk shall at once fall to fifty degrees or less. It is well known that a forty-quart can of milk lowered into spring water cools slowly on the outside, but that hours will pass before the inside of the can has its temperature lowered appreciably. Meanwhile, bacterial growth has started, and that milk can never be as good as when cooled quickly throughout. Special apparatus is made in which the milk is spread out in very thin sheets over a surface cooled by ice or cold water to a low temperature. In this way all the milk is at once lowered in temperature and may then be kept in spring water until time for shipment. Many examples can be given of the value of this kind of cooling. A few years ago, the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station determined that a certain milk when fresh contained, about 4000 bacteria per c.c., and fifteen hours later at room temperature had 270,000, and twenty-seven hours later had soured with an innumerable number of bacteria. Another part of the same milk, however, kept at fifty degrees Fahrenheit, showed absolutely no increase in bacteria for twenty-seven hours, and was still sweet with only 12,000 bacteria at the end of three days.

City milk.

The value of pure milk is not a matter of individual opinion on the part of the farmer, but it is a vital point with thousands and millions who are dependent upon the farmer for this life-giving food. Unfortunately, to-day the relation between the consumer and the milkman is so remote that it is almost lost sight of, and in place of the personal relationship which formerly existed, which made the milkman proud of his milk and the consumer proud of her milkman, there is to-day an absolute disregard of the interests of the other side in almost all cases. Even in the smaller cities, consolidated milk companies are being established by which the former independent milkmen are bringing milk to the central station in large cans, where it is dumped into vats along with the milk from a dozen other milkmen. Some may be good and some bad, but what is the use, each one says, of my taking particular pains when my neighbor produces milk of such poor quality? The result is that it is all far from good and likely to deteriorate rather than to improve. To be sure, at the central station it is bottled and distributed to the consumer in apparently clean glass jars, but this is not the same cleanliness that one gets when the bottling is done five minutes after the milk comes from the cow.