Babies - Milk Sanitation : Part 2

The Mother and Her Child
by William S. Sadler, M.D., Lena K. Sadler, M.D.

(Page 18 of 41)

It is possible to reduce the growth of these germs by keeping the milk at a very low temperature from the time it leaves the cow until the moment it gets to the home refrigerator. Those which survive this process of refrigeration may be quickly rendered harmless by pasteurizing or sterilizing at the time of preparing baby's food.

In the absence of the modern sanitary dairy, we would suggest that the milk supply be improved by giving attention to the following:

The cattle should be tested for tuberculosis every three months. The walls of the cow house should be whitewashed three times a year. The manure should be stored outside the barn. The floor of the cow house should be sprinkled and swept each day. The cattle should be kept clean - curried each day, and rubbed off with a damp cloth before milking. The udders should be washed before each milking. The milker can wear a clean white gown or linen duster which should be washed every two days, while his hands should be washed just before the milking. The milking pail should be of the covered sanitary order. The barn should be screened.

Certified Milk

Immediately after leaving the cow, the milk should be cooled to at least 45 F. It should at once be put into bottles that have been previously sterilized and then be tightly covered, and should be kept in ice water until ready for consumption. No matter how carefully the milk is handled, it is infected with many bacteria, but if it is quickly cooled, the increase of the bacteria is greatly retarded. Under no circumstances buy milk from a grocery store out of a large can. Go to your health officer and encourage him in his campaign for sanitary dairies and certified milk.

Such milk as we have described under the head of sanitary dairies, when it has been tested by the board of health and has received the approval of the medical profession, is known as "certified milk;" and, although the price is usually fifteen to twenty cents a quart, when compared with the cost of baby's illness it will prove to be cheaper than the dirty milk which sickens and kills the little folks.

There is no doubt that the increased use of "certified milk" has been a great factor in the reduction of deaths from infant diarrhea in recent years.

Boiling the Milk

When certified milk cannot be had, it is absolutely dangerous to give raw, not boiled, or not pasteurized milk to the baby, particularly in warm weather; for the countless millions of manure germs found in each teaspoon of ordinary milk not only disturbs the baby's digestion, but actually makes him sick, causing colic, diarrhea, and infant cholera. The only way this milk can be rendered safe is by cooking it - actually killing the bacteria. This process of boiling, however, does not make good milk out of bad milk nor clean milk out of that which is dirty, it simply renders the milk less dangerous.

There are two methods of killing bacteria - sterilization and pasteurization. By sterilization is meant the process of rendering the milk germ free by heating, by boiling. Many of the germs found in milk are comparatively harmless, merely causing the souring of milk; but other microbes are occasionally present which cause serious diseases, such as measles, typhoid and scarlet fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and diarrhea. It is always necessary to heat the milk before using in warm weather, and during the winter it is also important when infectious or contagious diseases are prevalent.

Milk should be sterilized when intended for use on a long journey, and may be eaten as late as two or three days afterward.

To sterilize milk, place it in a well-protected kettle and allow to boil for one hour and then rapidly cool. This process renders it more constipating, and for some children many of its nutritive properties seem to be destroyed, as scurvy is often the result of its prolonged use. When a child must subsist upon boiled milk for a long period, he should be given the juice of an orange each day. Children are not usually strong and normal when fed upon milk of this character for indefinite periods. All living bacteria (except the spores or eggs) may be destroyed by boiling milk for one or two minutes.

Pasteurization

When baby is to use the milk within twenty-four hours, "pasteurization" is better than boiling as a method of destroying microbes.

There are many pasteurizers on the market which may be depended upon, among which are the Walker-Gordon Pasteurizer, and Freeman's Pasteurizer; but in the absence of either of these pasteurization may be successfully accomplished by the following method:

On the bottom of a large kettle filled with cold water, place an ordinary flatiron stand upon which is put a folded towel. On this place the bottle of milk as it comes from the dairyman, with the cap of the bottle loosened. The cold water in the kettle should come up to within an inch of the top of the bottle of milk. Heat this water quickly up to just the boiling point - until you see the bubbles beginning to rise to the top. The gas is then turned down or the kettle is placed on the back of the range and held at this near-boiling point for thirty minutes, after which it is taken to the sink and cold water is turned into the water in the kettle, until the bottle of milk is thoroughly cooled. It is now ready to be made up into the modified food for baby.

Never let pasteurized milk stand in the room, nor put it near the ice when warm. It must be cooled rapidly, as described above; that is, within fifteen or twenty minutes.

The "spores" of the milk are not killed by pasteurization and they hatch out rapidly unless the milk is kept very cold, and, as already stated, it should be used within twenty-four hours after pasteurization.

The Care of Bottled Milk

The certified milk or the ordinary milk that has been delivered to your home and is to be used without pasteurization or sterilization, should receive the following care:

1. It should be placed at once in a portion of the ice box that is not used to store such foods as radishes, cabbage, meats or any other open dishes of food whose odors would quickly be absorbed by the milk. The milk should never be left standing on the doorsteps in the sun, for many reasons: the sun heats the milk, encourages the growth of bacteria, and a passing cat or dog, whose mouth often contains the germs of scarlet fever, tonsillitis, and diphtheria, should it be hungry, laps the tops of the bottles, particularly in the winter when the cream has frozen and is bulging over the edge.

2. It should never be kept in the warm kitchen, as when visiting her sick baby we discovered one young mother doing. In answer to my question, she explained; "Doctor, we do not take ice in the winter time, everything is ice outdoors, so I just set the bottle outside the window bringing it in whenever I need to give the baby some food. I forget to put it out sometimes, but really now, does it matter?" It really matters much, for you see, reader, the milk is first freezing then thawing and it is rendered entirely unfit for the baby.

3. Milk should be kept covered and protected from dust and flies; it should be kept in glass jars which have been sterilized by boiling before being filled, and then placed in the refrigerator. If the milk is sour, or if there is any sediment in the bottle, it is unfit for baby's use.

About the Author

Dr. William S. Sadler M.D. was a well-known American psychiatrist and college teacher in the school of medicine at the University of Chicago. For over sixty years he practiced his profession in Chicago, thirty-three years being associated in practice with his wife, Dr Lena Kellogg Sadler. The doctors were pioneers in the research on the mysterious Urantia Papers.