Soured milk may be taken at any time, the first thing in the morning, before or after meals, or the last thing at night. The quantity will vary with the individual, but from half a pint to a pint is a fair amount for daily use. If one wishes to have the maximum effect it is necessary for the time being to curtail the use of butcher's meat and substitute fish, yolk of eggs, and other similar foods; not much alcohol should be taken, and smoking might be reduced to a minimum. Those who cannot take even skimmed milk may use whey in which to cultivate the bacillus; it is not desirable to employ the whey which has been separated by the use of rennet, as in cheese- or junket-making. A better article is obtained by adding a very small quantity of pure hydrochloric acid to milk which has been boiled, and then filtering through a sieve, which retains the curd while the liquid whey passes through; a pinch of soda is added to neutralise the excess of acid, and, after boiling, the liquid should turn red litmus paper blue; it is then ready for the addition of the culture and incubation in the same manner as with milk. A solution of malt—the extract dissolved in hot water is convenient—may also be used instead of milk, and strongly malted bread or biscuits are excellent to take with the soured milk or cultures in other mediums, to supply food for the bacillus in the form of malt sugar. Other sugars, cane or grape, are also very useful, and may be taken in the form of fruit juices, syrups, confections, jams, sweet puddings, etc.
We lay stress on the use of soured milk or other cultures of the Bulgarian bacillus by people in health as a probable preventive of disease and a possible agent in the lengthening of life, but it may be of interest to give a short account of its use by medical men in the treatment of various ailments. An English authority on the subject, Dr. Herschell, states that the symptoms of the poisoning of the system by the toxic substances produced by injurious bacteria in the large intestine may include headaches, misery and depression of spirits, drowsiness and stupor, giddiness, dimness of sight and dizziness, fatigue without obvious cause, both of the muscles and brain, fear, panic, and nervousness, disagreeable sensations in the limbs or face, such as numbness, tingling, or prickling, crawling sensation of weight or of heat or cold, dyspepsia of the sort where there is a deficiency of hydrochloric acid and pepsin in the gastric juice, accompanied by flabbiness and loss of power in the muscles of the stomach, and characterised by flatulence, nausea, loss of appetite, with discomfort and weight after food, furred tongue, emaciation, earthy colour of the skin, offensive perspiration and the other signs of biliousness, enlargement of the liver, and anæmia. These symptoms may have other causes, and when one or several of them are present a chemical and physical examination of the urine and fæces is necessary to prove that they have resulted from auto-intoxication. When this is shown the soured milk treatment is indicated, and many striking cures are detailed as witnesses to its efficacy. The liver and kidneys are the natural guardians of the body against the toxines we are speaking of, and frequently they are over-strained; the soured milk treatment greatly lightens their load. In malignant disease of the stomach, soured milk will frequently be retained when all other foods are rejected. In cases of neurasthenia and gout it has also proved of value, and in the "run-down" condition which is so common in middle life. Chronic diarrhœa and certain forms of constipation have in numerous instances yielded to the treatment, the whey culture being usually found the most suitable. Then, in some forms of anæmia, the lactic acid cultures have proved most successful, and, as a means of rendering the gastro-intestinal track aseptic previous to operations, they have proved of considerable value.
If all this has been accomplished in a year or two, what may not we look forward to in the future when more extended use and experiment shall have more fully exhausted the possibilities of the cure? But if we follow the example of the different nations who have so long used soured milk as a regular article of diet, does it not seem probable that we may eliminate some, at least, of the causes of ill-health that call for the intervention of the doctor?
The human organism is by no means perfect; we have within us many defective parts, and some organs whose working seems to be against the welfare of the economy. It has now been clearly shown that one of the chief of these is the large intestine, as to the use of which only vague and unsatisfactory theories have been formed. There can be no doubt as to the damage which it frequently inflicts on the system, and, thanks to the researches of Professor Metchnikoff and other investigators, we seem to be in possession of a natural remedy which is sufficient to deal with the evils it produces.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Discoveries in Nineveh and Babylon, by Layard, chap. xiii.
[2] Ex. xviii. and xxiii.; Lev. ii. and xi.
[3] Encyclo. Biblica.
[4] Burckhardt and Doughty.
[5] Annals of Dairying in Europe, by Loudon M. Douglas.