University Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1908-1916, 1912-02-16


conversation.
"Buttermilk," He pushed his glas
Iaway.
The sturdy man opposite spoke H,
looked straight at his emaciatet
friend.
"Yes, buttermilk, battlefield
graveyard, life. death"-the speaker
held his glass down and leaned bacl
in his chair.
Il am interested in buttermilk
Buttermilk has hope for me as vita
as life. for the hope offers life wheth
er the buttermilk does or not.
talked yesterday with C. II. Eckles
professor of dairy husbandry in the
University of Missouri. He told me
some interesting things
This glass of buttermilk is a
soothing society. move it and
move 1926 700 million organisms each
complete in itself. | place this spoon
in the glass. | withdraw it and in
th.se few drops of buttermilk | have
micrObe for every man, woman and
child alive today. Why, hidden in
the whiteness there. there is mi
crObe for every child born since the
birth of Moses with a few extra mil
lion for Christmas and wedding pres
entS'
The emanciated man had a sarcast-
ic look. How did they take the cen
sus?" he asked.
Simple. Let me make the deter
mination. take one part butter
milk to say 100000 parts sterilized
water. | place a known volume of
this dilutiOn in a very shallow. flat,
glass receptacle. pour in some pre-
pared gelatine culture. Now | have
a thin layer of gelitine and water con-
tanning few microbes on the trans
parent bottom of the dish. | guard
the culture against outside cOntami-
nation by placing my preparation I'M
der cover.
What happens? The micrObe
from the buttermilk begin to repro
duce. | want more microbes before
begin to count. Where first there
was single microbe. now there is a
economy, millions. But the gelatine has
set. and owing to its consistency each
colony remains intact, and shows it
self as circular, yellOwish spot. per-
haps quarter of an inch in diameter.
| could not count microbes by ones,
but | can count them by millions.
Each colony represents what was a
single micrObe in the beginning. Six
colonies, six microbes in the butter
milk. The rest of the determination
as to how many microbes in the glass
is merely a problem in multiplication.
If | make ten tests and take the aver
age. | am pretty near the actual pop
ulatiOn.''
The speaker held up his glass
again.
You are now looking at $4,000
million policemen of the public
health 1t sounds like a fairy tale
or the babble of children, but it is
true. What are the microbes doing?
Living. and in living producing Tactic
acid. Lactic acid is what sOurs milk.
Lactic acid is preservative. 1t pre-
vents decay. There are people who
put meat they wish to keep in butter
milk. If the Tactic acid bacteria did
not not attack and sour the milk, the
milk would putrefy, become poison
Gus, and extremely dangerous to
drink.
You drink milk The speaker !
looked at the man across the table. !
Somebody would likely be playing
baseball with your bones if it were
not for Tactic acid bacteria.
This glass of buttermilk repre- !
sents a complex situation. Putrefac- |
ton is produced by bacteria. Lactic
acid kills the bacteria of putrefac-
ton. Moreover, Tactic acid kills lac /
tic acid bacteria themselves. The !
more Tactic acid microbes there are
the more Tactic acid; the more Tactic
acid. the less Tactic bacteria. Beauti-
full balance that! Still,the same thing
would be true of all animal and veg
,table life under the same cOndi-
tiOns. We ourselves. if shut up,
would die from the effects of carbOnic
acid gas exhaled from the lungs.
Take another look at this glass. 1t
is battlefield; Tactic acid bacteria
for existence with bacteria
Of putrefactiOn. The Tactic acid bac-
teria win. Then the glass becomes a
graveyard full of martyrs to their
own activities. Their element is rid
Of putrefactive enemies. The goal is
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