WHAT IS MEANT BY "QUALITY" IN MILK

It..A. ~ I N - ~ , 1%. S. BRb~,D, W, A. STOCKING, Ja., AND lg. O. HASTINO~

The Illinoia, Nsw York and Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Stations
co6perating

FOREWORD

For many years the Official Dairy Ii~structors Association,

w~ch has recently become the American Dairy Science Associ-
ation, has m - i ~ , ~ d a committee on d~.i~r score card, which
committee is resl~nSil~le for the so-caUed "o~icial" d,iry score
card, In 1912 th~s committee recognized the necessity fo~. a
d~fferen~ score card evaluating the quali~y of, milk rather th!an
the conditions under wbSeh mi]lr was produced, mad formed a
subcommittee t~,study this problem. This subcommittee was
later made an association committee on mil~ quality. Exo
tensive investigations have been conducted particu~.rly a~ t l ~
New York Agricultural Experiment Station. a~ Geneva, and the.
Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station in c c o ~ c t i o n with this
study, mad the present publication is an ~.n,.|y~ of the prol~ma
of millr q~..li~y as it appears to this committee,,after these yea~
of study.
H. A. ~ I ~ o
College of Agricult~re and Agvivuh~a~
Experimen~ Statiou, Uni~Jevsi~of, II~lnoi~
R. S. BRE~D,
New Yor]~A gricul~u~ed Ex~.iman~
S~atioa, G~eva
Wo A. STOCK.O, Jm
New York S~a~ (7ogege of A~rived~ca~d
Agricultural Experiment ~ f , a ~ a t
Gornelt University
E. G. H ~ , ~ s
~ollege of Agricul~e and Agricult~a~
Experiment Statiaa~ University of W ~ o ~ i ~
199
200 HARDING, BREED, STOCKING AND HASTINGS

INTRODUCTION

The terms "good" and " b a d " are often used to describe
quality in milk. These terms, however, are indefinite and it
is difficult to draw an arbitrary line of separation on this basis.
It needs but a slight study of the milk question to recognize
that the goodness or badness of milk depends upon several
factors. Because of the complexity of this situation there is
much confusion in the public thought regardingquality in milk.
As a result, milk is still commonly sold without the use of grades
to designate quality, the state of New York being one of the
exceptions to this rule.
The present publication is a brief summary of previous con-
siderations of the various sides of this question, a plea for a
broader consideration of the problem of milk quality, and a
suggestion ,regarding the line along which future progress in the
improvement of city milk supplies will undoubtedly be made.

ELEMENTS OF QUALITY IN C1TY MILK

Many factors combine to determine the quality of milk.

Each of the factors has l~een recognized as important at one time
or another, but apparently thus far no one has succeeded in so
fully analyzing the city milk situation as to formulate a complete
expression for milk quality. The following summary~ of the
elements of quality in city milk under the headings of food value,
healthfulness, cleanliness, and keeping quality is an attempt at
such an analysis. The order of presentation of these elements
is essentially that in which they have been previously brought
to public attention.
Food t~due

While milk is sometimes used as a beverage, the fundamental

reason for the existence of the present vast traffic in milk is the
x This summary of elements of quality in city milk does not consider the occa-
sional occurrence in milk of disagreeable substances, of which onions and gasolins
are the most common examples, because the evident presence of such substances
automatically excludes such milk from the Gity trade.
 W H A T IS M E A N T B Y " Q U A L I T Y " I1~ M I L K 201

fact that milk is one of our most important foods. Not only
does it offer energy in a readily available form, but the amount and
variety of the compounds contained in milk make it a peculiarly
valuable food for growing children. The present consumption
of milk in this country is only about 0.6 pint per capita per
day, although from the standpoint of protein, which is especially
needed by the growing child, or from the standpoint of total
energy as utilized by the adult, much more food value is ob-
tainable from milk for a given sum of money than can be pur-
chased in any comparable food. The follo~ving table recently
prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture illus-
trates this point:
Protein Energy
1 q u a r t of milk is equal t o : 1 q u a r t of milk is equal t o :
7 ounces of sirloin s t e a k 11 ounces of sirloin s t e a k
6 ounces of r o u n d s t e a k 12 ounces of r o u n d s t e a k
4.3 eggs 8½ eggs
8.5 ounces of fowl 10.7 ounces of fowl

In 1856 the laws of Massachusetts (2) attempted to protect

milk from adulteration and since that time federal, state, and
municipal authorities have enacted laws establishing standards
for butter fat and the other solids in milk. It was the original
conception that milk was of essentially fixed composition and
that the establishment of minimum standards would stop the
watering and skimming of milk. The establishment of these
legal standards undoubtedly has had a pronounced effect in
limiting open and gross adulteration of milk, but the secondary
and unexpected effects of such enactments have been such as to
raise the question whether, taken as a whole, they have been
beneficial to the quality of the milk supply.
While it is true that these legal standards set definite limits t o
the extent to which the food value of milk could be reduced
without incurring the penalty of the law, at the same time they
offered indirectly stimulus for the reduction of such food value
to a figure approximating these legal minimum standards.
The cost of producing milk at the farm is fairly proportional to
the amount of food value in the milk. With the narrow margin
JOURNAL OF DAIRY SCIENCE, VOL. I, NO. 3
202 HARDII~G~ BREED~ STOCKING AND HASTINGS

of profit which exists in milk production, there has been a strong

impelling force toward the production of milk with the smallest
food value that the market would accept without reduction in
price. When the law prohibited the reduction of food value by
the direct addition of water, the same result was frequently
accomplished by the selection of animals producing milk which
approached or even fell below the legal minimum limits. It is a
matter of common knowledge that the milk supplies of our
larger cities have been falling in food value, and today much of
the milk sold in such cities is almost exactly at the legal limit
of fat and below the legal limit in solids not fat.
This reduction in food value is all the more striking in view of
the marked preference which the consuming public has for milk of
high food value. M a n y progressive milk dealers recognizing this
situation have offered milk high in fat content at an advanced
price with commercial success.
While there is no simple, and at the same time, entirely satis-
factory method of expressing the food value of milk, it may be
roughly measured in a variety of ways. The housewife custom-
arily judges the food value of milk by noting the depth of
the cream line in the milk bottle. The food value of the other
constituents of normal milk do not vary in absolute propor-
tion to the fat, and therefore the fat is not an entirely accu-
rate measure of the food value of the milk; but, at t h e same
time, the variations in total food value are so nearly propor-
tional to the variations in the fat of the milk that the fat con-
tent of a milk of cows m a y well be used as an index of the
relative food value of various samples of milk. This index
has the added convenience of being easily and accurately de-
termined by means of the Babcock test.

Healthfulness
It is not enough that a bottle of milk shall have a b u n d a n t
cream in order to be accurately characterized as good milk.
If such milk should contain even a limited number of virulent
typhoid-fever organisms, it would be rejected by anyone who
 W H A T IS M E A N T BY c~QUALITY" IN" M I L K 203

was acquainted with this fact. While the milk business is con-
ducted primarily because milk is a valuable "food, the occasional
appearance of an epidemic spread by the use of milk has made
the public suspicious of the healthfulness of all milk. This
public suspicion is a severe handicap to the milk business, and
any procedure which will remove this suspicion and stimulate
the increased consumption of milk will be of great economic
benefit to the dairy industry as well as to the consumer.
While the possibility of milk functioning as a carrier of disease
had been previously discussed, beginning about 1893 (3) the use
of the tuberculin test revealed a large amount of tuberculosis
in dairy cattle and the public was impressed with the danger of
spreading tuberculosis through the milk (4). Later investiga-
tions, particularly those made during the past fifteen years, have
fully demonstrated the danger of tuberculosis being transmitted
from cows to children through the milk. Occasional epidemics
(5) of septic sore throat and typhoid fever and less frequently
epidemics of scarlet fever and diphtheria transmitted in the same
way have given good grounds for suspicion regarding the health-
fulness of the ordinary raw milk supply. The amount of dan-
ger from this source is commonly overestimated, but its existence,
particularly in the case of children, is beyond question and should
not be overlooked.
Health authorities, early recognizing tuberculosis of cattle as a
public menace, attempted to stamp it out by the widespread
application of the tuberculin test. The difficulties encountered
in such an attempt made it evident that whatever may be the
value of the tuberculin test as such, there is little prospect that
the application of the test will become so widespread as to offer
protection to the general milk supply.
It has also been recognized that tuberculosis is only one of a
number of diseases which may be distributed through the milk
supply. Any plan which is to make milk a safe article of food
must take account, not only of diseases which may be transmitted
from the cow, but also of the more formidable list of diseases
which may be transmitted by the milk from the people who
handle it tQ those who consume it. The history of certified
204 HARDING~ BREED, STOCKING ~ HASTINGS

milk has made it evident that a careful medical supervision of

both animals and men will reasonably protect the milk from
danger of transmitting human diseases, but the expense of such
supervision is large.
Pasteurization of milk was early advocated as a means of safe-
guarding the consumer from the dangers, not only of tubercu-
losis, but of other transmissible diseases. As with the tuber-
culin test, so with pasteurization, many practical difficulties
were encountered in applying the process to the milk supply.
The studies of Theobald Smith (6) and of Russell and Hastings
(7) which pointed out the practicability of pasteurizing milk at
140°F. for thirty minutes, mark the real beginning of modern
successful mill~ pasteurization. This pasteurization, which both
gives the desired protection against disease germs and furnishes
a product satisfactory to commercial milk requirements, was the
beginning of a widespread general interest in the subject. This
interest has grown to the point where the regulations of the
largest cities and of some of the smaller cities make such pas-
teurization of the general milt: supply compulsory. In some
instances this movement toward pasteurization has even taken
the form of state enactment (8).
It is evident that if the milk supply is to be made so safe as to
banish the suspicion of danger from disease germs, which is now a
factor limiting the consumption of milk, the milk must either be
produced under a careful medical supervision regarding the health
of the cows and men or it must be properly pasteurized.
Cleanliness
In order to conform to the general opinion of a good milk, it
is not sufficient that a milk shall have high food value and shall
be free from danger of disease. If at the bottom of the bottle
of milk there is a distinct sediment, the purchasing public will
uniformly reject the milk as being of poor quality. The public
is justly desirous of having a clean food supply, and there is
probably no food product regarding which it is more sensitive
than milk. The extreme sensitiveness of the public in this matter
is due in part to the fact that milk naturally lends itself to careful
 WHAT IS MEANT BY " Q U A L I T Y " IN MILK 205

inspection. The white milk forms a natural background against

which any foreign matter stands out with startling distinctness.
As a result of these physical conditions the unaided eye is able
to detect the presence of foreign matter in milk when it is pres-
ent in such minute quantities as to practically defy detection
by analytical methods. The sensitiveness of this inspection is
shown by the fact that it is possible to thus find traces of foreign
matter in practically any quart of milk which is critically ex-
amined, regardless of the care exercised in its production. In
the certified milk from the cleanest dairies in the country which
is annually brought together in competition at the National
Dairy Show, such foreign matter is evident to the eye in over 80
per cent of the bottles. On the other hand, the amount of this
foreign matter is so slight in all certified milk, and in practically
all commercial milk, as to be upon the very margin of detection
by analytical methods.
Taking advantage of the sensitiveness of the eye to differences
in color, a method called the sediment test (9) has been devised
for determining the cleanliness of milk. In applying this sedi-
ment test, measured quantities of milk are passed through
cotton and the dirt is observed as a residue upon the white cotton.
This test has been quite widely applied in commercial work.
While in rare cases the'presence of considerable amounts of dirt
has been demonstrated, in practically all instances the amount
of dirt found in the milk has been slight. When attention has
been directed to the presence of any considerable quantities of
dirt, the conditions of milk production have been promptly
modified so as to bring the milk to a uniformly high standard of
cleanliness.
Milk as it is now generally produced and handled is one of
our cleanest food~.
Keeping quality
In order that a milk shall be justly entitled to be called good
milk, it is not sufficient that it be high in food value, that it be
free from danger of carrying disease, and that it be clean, because
if it is sour when delivered to the consumer or sours promptly
206 HARDING, BREED, STOCKING AND HASTINGS

thereafter, it is unsatisfactory. In the northern states, at least,

the delivery of milk once a day is expected to supply the needs
of the family for the succeeding twenty-four hours. Accordingly,
good milk must remain sweet during that period, and preferably
during a longer period, in order to justly entitle it to be called
good.
It is possible to estimate the condition of the milk with regard
to food value, healthfulness, and cleanliness, by comparatively
simple methods. The situation with regard to keeping quality is
more complex. Souring is induced by the growth in the milk of
minute forms of plant life--bacteria. This plant life attacks
the sugar of the milk, using it as a food, and producing acid as
a by-product. When the accumulation of this acid amounts to
approximately 0.3 per cent, the milk begins t 9 taste sour; and
when the accumulation of acid has reached approximately 0.7
per cent, the milk curdles. The problem of maintaining a
satisfactory keeping quality is essentially a problem of restricting
the development of germ life. It is possible to meet this prob-
lem either by preventing the entrance of germs, by destroying
them after they enter, or by holding the milk under conditions
which will prevent the activity of the germs after they enter.
While the problem of the keeping quality of milk can thus be
stated in simple terms, the actual restriction of contamination
and of development of germ life is a complex matter. There
is still a lack of knowledge regarding the relative importance
of the various avenues through which bacteria gain access to the
milk, and this results in a lack of knowledge regarding the most
practicable means of preventing their entrance.
In attempting to control keeping quality, v.arious cities have
made regulations establishing a maximum number of germs
permissible in their milk supplies (10). These regulations did
not attain the desired results, and in many cases the cities further
stipulated various conditions which must accompany milk pro-
duction. The establishment of bacterial standards placed upon
the milk producer and the milk dealer the responsibility of trans-
lating these standards into terms of dairy processes, while the
detailed recommendations formulated by the health authorities
 WHAT IS MEANT BY C~QUALITY'~ Ibl" MILK 207

are an attempt on their part to make this translation. In

practice both these attempts have failed to accomplish the
desired end. As a measure of the keeping quality there are many
advantages in a direct (11) determination of the germ life, but
this is a technical process not readily available to the dairy-
men and accordingly has certain limitations.
The true measure of the keeping quality of milk is the time
which elapses before it actually sours. This is the measure
employed by the consumer, but manifestly it cannot be applied
in advance at any earlier stage in the commercial life of the milk.
A modification of this is possible in that samples of the milk
under consideration may be held at high temperatures and the
interval before curdling noted. From a comparative study of
the effect of a temperature on germ growth, it would then be
possible to translate this interval into "the time which would
elapse before the original milk ~would sour at the lower tempera-
ture at which it would normally be held. This procedure in-
volves some time and technical apparatus which is not often
available.
The commercial milk men have long employed the acid test,
as well as their trained sense of taste and smell, in estimating
the probable keeping quality of milk as delivered at their plants.
By these means they have been able to anticipate somewhat
the time at which milk will be no longer acceptable to the whole-
milk trade, but it is only as milk approaches this limit that its
condition is determinable by these means.
During the past few years there have been suggested a num-
ber of technical milk tests more or less closely related to keeping
quality, such as the reductase test, the Schardinger reaction,
the alcohol test, the catalase test, and the hydrogen ion concen-
tration. In general the availability of these tests seems limited
because they are mainly useful only in the later stages of the
commercial life of milk.
In view of this unsatisfactory condition of knowledge regard-
ing the measurement and control of the keeping quality of milk,
the New York (12) and Illinois (13) Agricultural Experiment
Stations have undertaken extended and detailed study of lhe
208 HARDING, BREED, STOCKING AND HASTINGS

various factors affecting the entrance and growth of germ life in

milk.
Complexity of the problem
The above outline of the various phases of milk quality brings
out the fact that at various times the students of the milk question
have been interested first in one, then in another element of milk
quality, and that in connection with each such attempt they have
succeeded in devising a more or less successful index of quality
with regard to the particular point under observation.
This publication is designed to emphasize the fact that the
quality of city milk is not a simple matter to be adequately
expressed after a consideration of any one factor, but that it is
a complex matter which can be expressed only after an adequate
consideration and evaluation of each of these four essential
factors; namely, food value, healthfulness, cleanliness, and keep-
ing quality.
While the percentage of fat in inilk is not a perfect measure of
the food value, it is an easily determined index of food value.
While medical supervision of the health of the cows and the men
or proper pasteurization are not absolutely self-sufficient guaran-
tees of the healthfulness of milk, they are the most practicable
and easily applied indices of healthfulness. The sediment test,
while open to some objections, is a simple and easily applied
index of milk cleanliness. The problem of a satisfactory index
for keeping quality is not so simply solved. Among the many
available tests, that one must be selected which will best suit the
purpose in hand.
Much of the confusion in the public mind regarding milk
quality has been due to a failure to discriminate properly be-
tween germ content and healthfulness, on the one hand, and
germ content and cleanliness, on the other.
The introduction of the public to the subject of germ life came
through the attention which was early given to germs as pro-
ducers of diseases such as tuberculosis (14) and typhoid fever.
To the public, bacteria and disease became practically synony-
mous words. Later the attention of the public was directed to
 WHAT IS MEANT BY "QUALITY" IN MILK 209

germ life in milk (15) at about the same time that its attention
was directed to the possibility of germs of tuberculosis (16)
being present in milk. Therefore, it is not at all strange that in
public thought germ life and unhealthfulness of milk should
have seemed identical.
Early in the present century Metchnikoff (17) and other
writers began to lay stress upon the health-giving qualities
connected with certain germs in milk, as those of the Bulgaricus
group. More recently extensive commercial use has been made,
not only of cultured milks of various kinds, but also of vast quanti-
ties of bt~ttermilk containing the ordinary sour-milk organisms
with or without the addition of cultures of the Bulgaricus forms.
There is a continued satisfactory use of these sour-milk drinks
which contain m a n y millions or billions of bacteria per cubic
centimeter, not only of these special organisms with foreign
names, but also of the organisms present in our sour milk of
commerce. These experiences are gradually bringing home to
the public an appreciation of the fact that there is very little
connection between the amount of germ life in milk and the
healthfulness of milk.
The confusion in the public thought between the presence of
germ life and cleanliness of milk arises from the fact that it was
originally believed that the seeding of milk with bacteria came
about primarily as a result of a large quantity of bacteria being
carried into the milk upon various forms of foreign matter, such
as dirt and dust. Each particle of dust in the barn air was
looked upon as an omnibus overloaded with attached germ life.
More recent studies have shown that dust particles, instead of
being loaded in the manner described, actually carry living
organisms in less than one case out of a hundred. 2 While it
Compare, for example, the number of dust particles per cubic foot of air as
reported on page 61 of Final Report of the Committee on Standard Methods for
the Examination of Air (Am. Jour. Pub. Health, vol. 7, pp. 54-72, 1917), where the
number of dust particles per cubic foot of the air of New York City streets is
given as between 400,000 and 1,000,000, as determined by the filtration method,
with the number of bacteria per cubic foot of air as reported by Winslow, C. E. A.,
and Browne, W.W. (The microbic content of indoor and outdoor air. Monthly
Weather Review, vol. 42, pp. 452-453, 1914). The average numbers of bacteria
which the latter authors report do not exceed 113 per cubic foot for air from the
open country, from city streets, from offices, from factories, and from schools.
210 HARDING, BREED, STOCKING AND HASTINGS

is true that a small number of germs are carried into the

milk upon dirt, the amount of dirt actually finding its way into
the milk is so small in proportion to the mass of the milk that the
germ life added in this way is relatively insignificant. The
confusion regarding bacteria in milk is being cleared up by
studies which show that the real source of contamination of milk
is either an unusual poptflation of bacteria.in the udder, or far
more frequently, the presence of a surprisingly large amohnt of
germ life upon the utensils in which the milk is handled. So
persistent is this idea of the constant association of germ life and
dirt that the natural inference would be that utensils carrying
large numbers of germs were dirty. This inference is not in
accord with the carefully observed facts, since germ life is present
in vast numbers upon dairy utensils which have been rendered
clean in the ordinary sense of the word, but which have not been
so handled as to obliterate germ life.
Later studies of germ life in the udder (18) have made it plain
that germ life is constantly present in all samples of normal milk
from the time it is secreted by the glands of the udder to the
time it is utilized by the consumer.
Too frequently the public thinks of milk merely as a fluid con-
taining butter fat, while it should of course recognize the fact
that milk also normally contains about 5 per cent of milk sugar,
as well as varying amounts of other nitrogenous substances which
become most prominent in such things as cottage cheese. Until
a few years ago, few people appreciated that in the process of
milk secretion, worn-out gland cells and blood corpuscles are
thrown off into the milk and form a part of normal milk, since
they are uniformly and regularly present in considerable num-
bers in all milks (19). The recentness of our appreciation of the
normal presence of these cells in milk is shown by the fact that
up to a few years ago in certain cities there existed regulation
forbidding the presence of what are now known to be fairly
normal quantities of these cells in milk.
While the public is generally aware of the fact that milk al-
ways contains considerable quantities of germ life, it has probably
not yet come to appreciate the fact that germs in milk are just
 WHAT IS MEANT BY ~QUALITY" IN MILK 211

as constant, and therefore just as normally a part of milk, as

are milk sugar, fat globules, and body cells. The consumer has
little interest in the germ content of milk except for a limited
number of disease-producing forms against which he has a right
to insist upon adequate protection, and except in so far as the
germ life produces objectionable changes such as souring or bad
flavors in the milk itself.
COMPOSITE EXPRESSIONS OF Q~ALITY

As has already been stated, the students of milk have recog-

nized more or less distinctly the various elements of milk quality.
However, the public mind insists upon a simple, direct statement
of quality regardless of the complex relationship involved. I t
insists that a milk must be good, medium, or bad. Various plans
have been devised for meeting this demand and furnishing a
composite expression for milk quality.

Certified milk
Certified as applied to milk, signifies that it h a s the food value
of normal 4 per cent milk, the healthfulness resulting from a care-
ful medical supervision of all animals and men connected with
the production and handling of the milk, the cleanliness follow-
ing careful attention t o the cleanliness of the animals and the
utensils, and the keeping quality to be expected of fresh milk
with a low germ content, kept at a very low temperature.

Score card
As a measure of the desirability of the ordinary milk supply,
various dairy score cards have been suggested. These score
cards are an attempt to express on a percentage basis the pro-
tection given milk on the farm from the danger of contamination
with disease-producing germs both from animals and from men
(healthfulness) ; the protection given milk from dirt (cleanliness) ;
and the protection given milk b y care of utensils, by cooling,
and by prompt delivery (keeping quality). These score cards
have uniformly failed to take account of the food value of the
milk. Since these score cards are arranged on the basis of the
212 HARDII~G, BREED~ STOCKING AN'I) HASTINGS

agricultural methods and equipment rather than on the basis

of the milk, it is but natural that in the cards themselves there
should be much confusion regarding the items which apply
respectively to healthfulness, cleanliness, and keeping quality.
Some have expected to find correlation between germ content
and the dairy score; others feel that there should be a correlation
between cleanliness of the milk from dairies and the dairy score:
while others expect a correlation between the score of the dairy
and the presence or absence of disease germs. Such comparisons
on the basis of a single element of quality are necessarily unfair
to the score card unless it is recognized that the dairy score
combines factors connected with all three elements of quality.
The essential difficulties of present score cards arise from
the fact that they are an attempt to evaluate the influence of
dairy environment and processes upon the milk, when the rel-
ative importance of such factors has not yet been sufficiently
determined.
Grade.--This presentation would be very incomplete if it did
not include a suggestion as to the manner in which the four
elements of milk quality herein discussed might be combined
so as to form a basis for defining grades of milk. The following
is offered as a suggestive outline rather than as a finished plan
for milk grading:
Grade Bl~mem of q~it~
Food value F a t c o n t e n t a s s t a t e d o n package
Healthfulness Medical supervision of health of m e n
and animals, or proper pasteuriza-
Special milk
tion
Cleanliness Sediment, not more than a trace
Keeping quality Excellent

r Food value Fat content as s t a t e d o n package

I Healthfulness Properly pasteurized
Table milk Cleanliness Sediment, not more than a small
amount
l Keeping quality Good

I Food value Fat content as s t a t e d o n package

Cooking milk Healthfulness Boiled
Cleanliness May n o t be sufficient for table grade
Keeping quality May not be sufficient for table grade
 W H A T IS M E A N T BY ~ Q U A L I T Y " IN M I L K 213

Under the grade of special milk, the plan provides for milk of
any. desired composition to meet any special need, such as baby
feeding. The grade of tab/e milk will normally include the ordi-
nary city supply. The grade of cooking milk is designed for milk
not sufficiently fresh or not carefully enough handled to be suit-
able for the table grade. In order to assist in protecting the
consumer from unwittingly purchasing cooking milk instead of
table milk, it is suggested that cooking milk be boiled. Such
treatment will adequately protect healthfulness, and while making
this grade of milk readily recognizable, will not injure it for the
use for which it is designed.
R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y OF T H E PRODUCF.R FOR M I L K QUALITY

If the foregoing analysis of milk quality is correct, the producer

sustains somewhat different relations to each of the elements of
milk quality than has been ordinarily supposed. Contrary to cur-
rent belief, he is unable to control food value to any appreciable
extent by his method of feeding the cow. The forces of hered-
ity have determined what shall be the composition of the milk
of a given animal, and except for slight seasonal variations or
local disturbances a cow persists in giving milk of essentially a
fixed composition. On the other hand, by selecting his animals
he is able to produce milk of widely different food value, but at
a correspondingly different cost of production. Manifestly,
it must be expected that he will produce a milk having a food
value which will give him the widest margin of profit.
In the matter of healthfulness, the producer has the responsi-
bility of protecting, in so fax as he is able, the milk supply from
contamination by disease-producing organisms derived either
from cows or people. His recognized inability to satisfactorily
protect milk in this way calls for the added protection of medical
supervision of the health of the cows and men, or of pasteuriza-
tion; but medical inspection and pasteurization are, manifestly,
not the producer's problem.
The element of cleanliness is largely in the control of the pro-
ducer. Under present economic conditions, he is producing a
milk with a very high degree of cleanliuess, and if any additional
214 HARDING, BREED, STOCKING Ai~D HASTINGS

stress is laid upon this point he will undoubtedly produce milk

which is uniformly very clean.
The element of keeping quality is the one which presents the
greatest practical difficulty, because here the responsibility is
much divided. Definite information regarding many details
is still lacking, but the present stage of knowledge suggests that
the most common contributing factor to poor keeping quality
is the condition of the milk cans which are supposed to be prop-
erly treated at the milk plants. Where milking machines are
used, they are very frequently a large contributing factor to the
short keeping quality of the milk.
The adoption by the producer of the uniform practice of rinsing
his milk utensils with scalding hot water shortly before they are
used, would contribute very much to the keeping quality of the
milk. In practice each utensil coming into contact with the
milk adds to its germ content and decreases its keeping quality.
A reduction of the number of such utensils to the minimum is
very desirable.
Under ordinary conditions the udder of the cow contributes
but a small number of germs and these have little effect upon the
milk. Occasionally, however, cows or even herds are found
where the udder content is high and the effect upon the keeping
quality of the milk pronounced. Further information is neces-
sary before the true significance of this factor can be accurately
estimated.
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE DISTRIBUTOR

The responsibility of the distributor in the matter of food value

concerns itself essentially with conserving the food value of the
milk as furnished him by the producer. Where economic con-
ditions permit, he is able to stimulate the production of milk
with a higher food value by paying a differential price.
For the healthfulness of milk a heavy responsibility lies upon
the distributor, particularly when he is charged with its pasteuri-
zation as a final safeguard to the consumer. As a possible
source of disease-producing germs, human beings are more
dangerous than cows, and a medical supervision of the employes
 WHAT IS MEANT BY ~cQUALITY" IN MILK 215

of the milk plant is desirable. This is particularly important

in the case of milk pasteurized in bulk, since this process gives no
protection from the later contamination, which is a more or
less remote possibility during the cooling and bottling processes.
The milk as it comes from the producer usually is and always
should be clean. The problem of the distributor is to preserve
this cleanliness.
The keeping quality of milk is more largely within the control
of the distributor than is usually supposed. He is frequently
responsible for the washing and steaming of the milk cans.
Where this steaming is done in a perfunctory manner, partic-
ularly where tight-fitting covers are applied to wet cans in
warm weather, these cans become one of the most important
factors in reducing the keeping quality of the milk. Where
a proper washing of the cans is followed by a thorough steaming
and the cans are carefully dried before being covered, they will
have little objectionable effect upon the milk. The large germ
content added to milk by utensils within the distributor's plant
is frequently an important factor in impairing its keeping quality.
The milk coolers and the bottling machines require special
watching in this connection, not only because they frequently
add large numbers of germs, but especially because they add
them after the milk has been pasteurized.
The intelligent application of steam to all of the utensils
should be a routine procedure, and the flushing out of all utensils
with scalding water shortly before using them is a valuable
additional precaution.

R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y OF THE CONSUMER

The food value of the milk furnished the consumer will depend
primarily upon what the consumer desires and is willing to pay
for. A considerable proportion of the consumers are desirous
of obtaining a milk carrying 4 per cent of fat or more, and where
the milk has been sold regardless of food value they have striven
to find the richest milk available at a given price. If each bottle
of milk carried a statement of its fat content, the responsibility
216 HAMDING, BREED, STOCKING AND HASTINGS

would then be upon the consumer to recognize and pay for in-
creased food value.
The consumer through his agents, the health officials, must
determine how the healthfulness of the food supply shall be
safeguarded. The dangers which naturally surround milk pro-
duction and handling are such that if the milk supply is to be
safe it must be protected either by a medical supervision of the
health of the cows and the men or by proper pasteurization, or
better, by a combination of both means of protection.
The cleanliness of milk, as it is now delivered to the consumer,
is in general very satisfactory, but continued emphasis is needed
to insure that it shall be constantly maintained at a high level.
The keeping quality of milk is constantly receiving the atten-
tion of the consumer, since there is no other shortcoming of
milk which is more quickly impressed upon him. The delivery
to the consumer of old, stale milk, on the verge of souring is
quite as much a fraud as the delivery of milk deficient in food
value, healthfulness, or cleanliness. The consumer is constantly
insisting on improvement in keeping quality, and his desires
will be met as rapidly as the producer and the distributor find
economical means of insuring this improvement.
Since the keeping quality of milk after delivery is dependent
primarily upon the temperature at which the milk is held, the
responsibility rests upon the consumer to hold the milk at a
reasonably low temperature after it is delivered to him. Too
frequently little regard is given to this matter by the consumer,
and much of the criticism directed against the keeping quality
of milk is accordingly unjust.
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(1) P&RKER, H. ~ . : City Milk Supply, p. 370, 1917.
(2) P~.ARSON,L. A. : Proceedings of the First International Veterinary Congress
of America. October, 1913.
(3) PARK, W. H., a_~u)KRU~O~EDZ, C. : The relative importance of the bovine
and human types of tubercle bacilli in the different forms of tuber-
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partment of Health, New York City, col. 7, pp. 88-92. 1913.
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and diphtheria. Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the
United States, Hygienic Laboratory Bul. 56, pp. 23-149. 1909.
 WHAT IS MEANT BY '~QUALITY'~ IN MILK 217

KELLEY, EUGENE R. : The quantitative relationship of milk-borne infection

in the transmission of human communicable diseases. Jour. Am. Med.
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(7) California St. Bd. of Health. Special Bul. 13. 1916. Oregon Dairy and
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JOU~AL O1FDAIRYSCIENCE,YOL.X, NO. 3