The Washington herald., 1912-03-16
Similar Conditions Will Prevail in
Washington, D. c., if Compulsory
PaSteurization Is Adopted.
SOME FACTS RELATING TO
MILK SUPPLY OF THE POOR
By Benjamin Director Research Laboratories nc Director and
Chairman of the Sanitary Milk Association

From the Milk Reporter, December 1911
Every day New York city con-
sumes about 100000 quarts of
milk.
OF this amount about IS per cent
is sold in raw state, or, in other
words, just as it comes from the
COW.
In "welI-to-do" neighborhoods it
is sold in bottles; in poor nelghbor-
hoods it is dispensed from cans.
The only difference between milk
in the bottle and milk in the can IS
the cost. Bottle milk costs more
than loose milk. This is purely a
commercial difference, caused by
relative cost of handling the two
products.
The milk is the same, physically
and nutritively.
The New York Health Depart
ment has decreed that after an
uary l, 1912, this IS per cent of
New York's milk supply shall un-
dergo special revolutionary pro-
cess before it can be sold. 1t must
be fastcwizcd. By pasteurization
is meant the heating of the milk to
some specific temperature below the
boiling point for sufficient length
of time to destroy any pathogenic
or disease producing germs which
may be present.
This really means that the health
department has decreed that prac-
ideally the entire milk supply of
New York city shall be pasteurized.
Why is the New York Health
Department so favorable to pas
teurization.
Commissioner Ernest J. Lederle'S 5
public explanation, as published in
the monthly bulletin of the health
department for June, must be &C
cepted as the answer.
To quote the commissioner, he
has been largely influenced" in his
compulsory pasteurization policy by
a valuable report submitted to the
board of health on March %, 1911,
by DIR. Herman NJ. Biggs, general
medical officer of the department.
In this report DR.. Biggs tells of a
discovery made of an extensive out
break of typhoid fever, due to the
infection of raw milk with typhoid
bacilli, infected by a so-called
typhoid carrier A typhoid car
rier," it may be explained, is a per-
son who has contracted typhoid
fever. and who, although apparently
healthy, still carries the typhoid ba-
cilli in his intestinal discharges.
Persons may become chronic ty-
Dhoid bacilli carriers for wears
without being aware of it.
~ANhile it is true that pasteuriza-
ton kills the typhoid bacilli, how
does pasteurization eliminate the
menace of the typhoid carrier"
These carriers are often en-
ployed in dairies, farms, &c, to do
general work, milk COWS, handle
milk cans, bottles, and other uten-
sis used in the preparation of the
milk for the market.
In almost all cases of typhoid
epidemics in which the disease pre-
sumably was traced to milk, it was
found that the cow was MIXED or
the milk handled by a person who
while physically able to perform
work was at the same time suffer
ing from typhoid fever and dis
charging the bacilli without his
knowledge.
That these carriers constitute one
of the most important factors in the
spread of the typhoid by milk is
illustrated by the following (p. AZ,
Bull. Sc, Public Health and Marine
Hospital Service of the L. So:
IAN outbreak occurred at Bren-
try Reformatory, an institution for
the detention and treatment of
llabitual inebriates. This Institution
ran its own dairy. From 1899 to
1906, no case of typhoid occurred,