thin comparatively recent years, practically no attention was
given to the character of milk supplies, except possibly as to the
percentage of butter fat, and sometimes the milk solids which it
contained. So long as the product could be placed in the hands of the
consumer in such shape as not to be rejected by him as unfit for food,
no further attention was likely to be given to its character. At
present, however, much more emphasis is being given to the quality of
milk, especially as to its germ content; and the milk dealer is
beginning to recognize the necessity of a greater degree of control.
This control must not merely concern the handling of the product after
it reaches him, but should go back to the milk producer on the farm.
Here especially, it is necessary to inculcate those methods of
cleanliness which will prevent in large measure the wholesale infection
that ordinarily occurs.

The two watch words which are of the utmost importance to the milk
dealer are _cleanliness_ and _cold_. If the milk is properly drawn from
the animal in a clean manner and is immediately and thoroughly chilled,
the dealer has little to fear as to his product. Whenever serious
difficulties do arise, attributable to bacterial changes, it is because
negligence has been permitted in one or both directions. The influence
of cleanliness in diminishing the bacterial life in milk and that of low
temperatures in repressing the growth of those forms which inevitably
gain access has been fully dealt with in preceding chapters. It is of
course not practicable to take all of these precautions to which
reference has been made in the securing of large supplies of market milk
for city use, but great improvement over existing conditions could be
secured if the public would demand a better supervision of this
important food article. Boards of health in our larger cities are
awakening to the importance of this question and are becoming
increasingly active in the matter of better regulations and the
enforcement of the same.

New York City Board of Health has taken an advanced position in
requiring that all milk sold in the city shall be chilled down to 45 deg.
F. immediately after milking and shall be transported to the city in
refrigerator cars.

Reference has already been made to the application of the acid test
(page 52) in the inspection of city milk supplies, and it is the opinion
of the writer that the curd test (see page 76) could also be used