The Portland daily press., 1877-04-19
THE FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
MILK n scavenger OF the Cows BOD,

MILK ScaVeH2er Oh inc COWS Body.
1t is fact which must have been noticed
by all observing farmers and their families,
that medicinal agencies, taken into the
stomachs OF all milk-giving animals, reappear
in the milk of such animals No fact is more
notorious than that any medicine-cathartic,
emetic or alterative-given to nursing
mother affects the child in exactly the same
way it does the mother, the medication being
carried through the milk of the mother to the
stomach of the child in such large proportions
as to make the effect upon the child as active
as upon the mother. This inclination of the
milk-gIands to carry off medicinal matter from
the body Of the milk-giving mother is not an
from the system. Disease is carried as readily
as medicine. Any and every disease which
taints the blood, as smallpox, measles,
typhoid fever scrofula, or consumption are
transmitted through the milk as readily as the
effects of medicine. The excretory power Of
the milk-glands does not stop with carrying off
medicine and disease-t extends to all foreign
matter floating in the blood of milk-producing
animals. Nor is this power confined to the
milk glands: 1t belongs to the other glands as
WE'LL All the large glands of the body act as
scavengers; but each has a function of its
own, to which it is more especially adapt
ed. The liver and kidneys are more ac-
tive in carrying off foreign and waste min
eral matters, while the central glands are
more active in ejecting organic substances.
These functions, however, run into each other
The oil of turpentine will appear in the secre-
tions of the kidneys in fifteen minutes after
being swallowed, and nitrate of potash will
about as soon appear to some extent in the milk
as well as in urine, While the milk glands are
not very different from other large glands in
their general action, their functions have an
interest above all others, in sanitary and eco
nomcal point of view, because of the part
their secretions take in our food and commerce.
The essential oils of plants which give them
distinctive fiavors or odors, as of turnips, on
ions &C., the putrld matter in rotten potatoes,
decaying grass and every other food in state
of decomposition, find their way out of the
system through the milk. 1 have been wit
Messing striking instance Of this for feeding
the whey of cheese factory TO the COWS fur
nishing milk for the factory. The whey in the
factory was not different from that of any other
factories 1t was one of six factories owned or
controlled by one man, under whose personal
supervision they were managed. The whey in
all the factories, as now managed, is stale be-
fore it leaves the factory; incpient decay is
started in it, and the COWS partaking of it car
~ the seeds Of destruction into the milk, and
thence into the cheese. The curds acted badly
and smeled badly; the cheese pulled and was
offlfavor, and quite unlike the cheese of the
othere five factories managed in just the
same way,so far as manufacturing is concerned
The quality of the cheese was depressed dol
lar cwt. The deprecated value brought out
strong remonstrance to feeding whey
to the cows, and it was stopped. The ef-
feet abated gradually, disappearing with
the third day. The cheese of the fourth day
became like those made in the other five tacto-
RES, controlled by the same superintendent
demonstrating beyond a doubt that the whey,
though very slightly affected. carried into the
bodies of the cows the seeds of putrefacton,
which were cast out again in the milk So
with all other fermenting, stale, or decaying
food. 1t is sure to- make its impress upon the
milk of the cow using it, making it objection
able and unsafe to feed mich cows with any
food, or to give them any water which contains
anything that would not be proper to be taken
into the human stomach. Farmers ADVOCATE.