Recent developments in the study of micro-organisms conducted within the past decade have demonstrated very clearly the dangers of infection upon a large scale from consumption of meat, milk, and other foods contaminated by the germs of infectious diseases.

Milk Infection

Milk is an admirable culture medium for a great variety of germs, and some bacilli, like those of typhoid fever and tuberculosis, thrive particularly well in it. Moreover, its abundant and varied proteid material furnishes substance out of which to develop powerful toxins for absorption.

The following are the chief diseases whose germs are capable of being sometimes conveyed by milk: Tuberculosis, typhoid fever, cholera, diphtheria, scarlet fever.

Milk, and food in general, should never be kept standing in an ice box or cellar near an open or defective drain, as it becomes rapidly tainted in noxious air.