The New York herald., 1876-01-29
The MILK Nuisance.

All the poets have chanted wine, at least
from the time Of Homer, who, for his own
part, had a taste for mixed drinks and gave q
good formula for julep; and all that the
poets have said of wine has glorifed and
helped to sell the queer compounds that are
passed over the bar to public with robust
faith. How much of q similar sentiment
has given currency to the disgusting mix
lures that the milkman leaves at everybody's
door may scarcely be known; but it is pretty
clear that but for the tyranny of our associa-
tions and sentiments milk would not be
regarded in the light of a prime necessity, as
it is to scarcely calculable degree Re
formers jump up every now and then and
urge man to do without meat and without
out tea, without coffee; and it is the insanity
of whole sections of the population that he
should sacredly deprive himself of
all his alcoholic beverages Although
we do not remember that any of these
wise people have preached crusades against
milk, they may have done SO and we are
certain that all grown persons may with
more safety and satisfaction be deprived of
this than of any of the others. Our people
commonly use this article in tea and coffee,
and in puddings and in punches. But the
nations which know most of coffee do not use
milk in it and they who know most of tea
equally abstain from the sort of fluid leather
which results when the tannin of the tea acts
on the animal secretion with which we color
it Very tolerable lives can be passed with
out the assistance of milk punches and the
pages of Francateli can probably offer to
delicate palates at least fifty puddings in
which milk has no part Would it not be
well, therefore for great public to solve
this overcoming difficulty of adulteration
in this article of diet by giving up Its use
One-haf the people Of this city, probably,
never use any milk They are an evidence
that man, and woman too, can live without it.
As for 'the counterfeit presentment," which,
because they get it from milkman they
believe to be milk, they are none
the better and may be the worse
for it Many thought that they. had
security in this regard-a sort OF
grand constitutional guarantee-in the '1ac-
tometer" That impression was fostered by
the Board of Health. With ON innocence of
positive knowledge peculiar to such bodies
the Board itself certainly acted as If it be-
lieved that all milk which met the standard
of the lactometer was therefore necessarily
pure and all that did not was therefore
necessarily impure and the public was con-
fident accordingly. AS the President of the
Board is q chemist, and therefore is doubt
less inclined to measure oil things by a
chemical method, this was perhaps natural
sort Of ignorance but any physician might
have discovered that there are other ele-
ments in the purity of milk than its density,
and that the lactometer could not measure
these. All that instrument does is to rise or
fall in a given fluid according as the proper
ton of solids which the fluid holds in solu-
tion is greater or less If the fluid
holds large proportion Of solids the
lactometer is buoyant; if the proportion of
solids is reduced the lactometer is depressed ;
and as any one Of the numbers marked on
the rod of the instrument rests at the sur
face so is indicated the density" Of the
fluid. Now, then, milkman pumps in his
water, and up goes the lactometer then he
plumps in his prepared chalk. sheeps brains
and other deicaciss Of that sor.a sad down