Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/651

Rh amount of milk which is used raw is really very small, and apparently its use in this condition is destined to cease. The younger generation of physicians are now being taught that raw milk is a dangerous food, and in some countries even the children in the schools are being taught that it is not safe to drink raw milk. Such teaching can have only one result, and that is the reduction in the amount of milk consumed. Much less milk is used in Europe than in this country. It is used for tea or coffee or for cooking, and of course for infant feeding, but for any one to drink milk as we do in this country is certainly a rarity. The suspicion under which milk has been placed has decreased its use.

The dangers which are feared in milk are of course connected with the distribution of disease. Most persons who thus hesitate to use milk have simply a vague fear, without knowing just what is to be feared. When we put together all the facts in our possession we find that there is good reason for believing that milk is sometimes concerned in the distribution of the following well-known diseases and some obscure ones: The first is tuberculosis, which is a disease attacking the cow, and, if located in the mammary gland, may infect the milk with tubercle bacilli, and may subsequently produce the disease in the person who drinks the milk. It should be stated, however, that there is good reason for believing that the danger from this source has been overrated. Second, we have diphtheria, which apparently may also attack the cow. The diphtheria germs may get into the milk from the cow, and they certainly do get into the milk occasionally from secondary sources. Scarlet fever apparently is distributed by milk, though whether this disease may come from the cow or only by secondary contamination of the milk is not yet positively settled. Typhoid fever has in a large number of cases been traced to the milk supply. This disease, however, does not occur in the cow, and the germs always get into the milk from a secondary source, such as water or contact with a person who has the disease. Cholera may be distributed by milk, but this is of course of little importance. Of these disease bacteria, the tubercle bacillus probably never grows in milk, while the typhoid and diphtheria germs do. The most common of all troubles attributed to milk are those somewhat obscure intestinal diseases which attack people especially in the summer months, and are particularly common among children. Prominent among these stands cholera infantum. These latter troubles, according to our present knowledge, are not produced by distinct species of bacteria finding entrance into the body and growing there, as are the other diseases mentioned. They appear to be produced by bacterial poisons which are in the milk. The bacteria—probably several different