The Holbrook news., 1910-06-03
Number of Microbes in a Dish of the COnfectiOn Exceeds Two
 Billions.
FOUND BY PROFESSOR BILLINGS
As the Age of the Delicacy Increases the More Bugs One Gets for
 His Money.

When one purchases a dish of ice cream he buys, in addition to the cream 2.522, ,656.OOO germs and he eats that number when he consumes the ice cream, says the New York correspondent of the Cincinnati En- Quirer. That is the number of mic robes found by Prof. F. H. Billings of the Kansas University, meteorological laboratories, in ten cents worth of fresh ice cream. Prof. Billings has been conducting experiments in germs in ice cream for six months, and his conclusions are that there are never fewer than O,O00,OOO kicking squirming microbes in the average dish of real fresh ice cream-that which is not more than a day old.
 As the age of the cream increases the more bugs one gets for the same money. The smallest number of mic robes found in ice cream three days old was 3.o41. .666, ,666. These figures are for the cleanest, purest and best of ice cream that Prof. Billings could buy. The number of microscopic or ganisms in cream prepared under none too strict sanitary conditions is very much greater than these figures show. The university has just sent out a bulletin on the subject of germs in ice cream. This says in part:
 Cold is unquestionably unfavor- able to the activity of the germs, but the experiments showed that germs are the most resistant to extremes of temperature of all known organisms. Often one thinks nothing of using ice from a river when one would not think of drinking the water from the same stream. The process of freezing removes some of the germs, but others will live in the ice all summer and have their activity restored when they are put into pitcher with the ice to make a cooling drink.
 The experiments proved that germs increased in number in stored ice cream. A sample of fresh ice cream tested 16,OOO.O0O germs to the. cubic centimeter. After three days storage in a frozen state the number of germs in the same sample had gone up to 9 100000 to each cubic centimeter.
 Tuberculosis germs have lived for forty-five days in the laboratories  when they were kept at temperature of 345 degrees below freezing. The germs lost none of their vitality or virulence in that time Other germs have stood equally severe tests with out injury.
 Cold cannot be depended upon as germ exterminator, but the winter Is a bad time for the microbes. They have fewer opportunities to get in their deadly work. The cold weather renders the germs less active and they are not so harmful. Sufficient use of ice during the summer months will stop the ravages of the germs in warm weather. It is impossible to find milk that is free from germs. Some milk has many millions fewer germs than other milk, depending upon the sani- tary conditions of the dairy and how the milk is handled. The filth germs kill many bottle-fed infants, and in- fant mortality is most prevalent in warm weather, when the germs are most active. Keeping the milk cold in warm weather does not reduce the number, in fact, it increases the num- Der, but it makes the germs less active and hence less harmful"