STERILIZING AT A LOW TEMPERATURE, ' OR PASTEURIZATION, is the second and preferable method. By pasteurizing is meant heating the milk for half au hour or more at a teinperature of from 155° to 170°. This is sufficient to destroy the pathogenic germs, though not their spores; such milk will keep on ice for only two or three days.
Pasteurizing for thirty minutes at 158° F. destroys bacilli of tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid, and cholera, but does not kill the bacteria which cause milk to spoil. Temperature of 200° P. de stroys all lactic-acid bacteria. Partially sterilized milk must be kept below 65° F. or consumed ithin tal elve hours. Fltigge (N. Y. Med. Jour., Dec. I, '94).
Milk to be s.ubjected to a temperature of 155° F. for half an hour and should be used within twenty-four hours. Bureau of Animal Industry, Washing ton (Coll. and Clin. Rec., Mar., '95).
[Freeman's pasteurizer is the simplest apparatus for sterilizing at low tem peratures. It may be obtained from most large drug-stores, or from James Dougherty, No. 411 West Fifty-ninth Street, New York City. L. EMMETT HOLT and L. E. LA FETRA.] High-temperature sterilization would seem to be the ideal method; but it is open to certain objections. In the first place it changes the taste to that of boiled milk, which many children do not like. It renders the milk constipating and the casein more difficult of diges tion. Furthermore, the nutritive prop erties of the milk are somewhat im paired; for it appears now beyond dis pute that the use of sterilized milk as the sole diet for a long time is not in frequently followed by the production of scurvy.
The chemical result of boiling milk is to kill all the living eells, and to coagu late all the albuminoid constituents.
There is a very distinctly appreciable lowered vitality in infants which are fed on boiled milk. The process of absorp tion is more delayed, and the quantity of milk required is distinctly larger for the same amount of growth and nourish ment of the child than is the case when fresh milk is used. J. L. Kerr (Brit. Med. .Tour., Dec. 14, '95).
Comparatively or temporarily steril ized milk may be administered for any length of time without fear, but steril ized milk that is put into hermetically sealed vessels, and which can thus keep fresh for several or many days, will pro duce senrvy unless some fresh food is administered daily. One meal of fresh whey daily will achieve this in younger infants than those who may have fresh vegetables, meat, or fruit. J. K. Barton (Brit. Med. Jour., Jan. 2, '97).
Study of the subject showed that the disadvantages of sterilizing milk in the artificial feeding of infants lie chiefly in those changes effected in milk by high temperatures. These alterations are not only chemical, but also physical, and are so profound and important that they interfere seriously with tbe absorp tion and assimilation of the milk. 21 prolonged feeding with sterilized milk not only destroys the balance of nitrog enous metabolism, but also interferes with the growth of the body, all the more because the salts are changed in character by sterilization, and so an in sufficient amount of the salts necessary for nutrition is absorbed. Sterilized milk, therefore, induces a defective de velopment of the body and renders it more susceptible to the invasion of dis eases. especially to maladies of the blood, the general metabolism. and con stitutional diseases. These facts. the author believes, should be sufficient to relegate sterilization to the past. N. P. (Russky Vratch, Feb. 15; New York Med. Jour., _April 25, 1903).
Cows' milk is the best substitute for mothers' milk, when properly prepared; but cows' milk is not bettered by steril ization or pasteurization; on the C011 trary, this treatment undoubtedly makes it the direct cause of rickets and scurvy and kindred diseases in children. The object of pasteurization can be safely accomplished by receiving the milk in sterilized quart bottles, which are then tightly sealed, labeled with the dairy man's name and the (late, and cooled im mediately in a temperature of 40° F. E. -M. Sill (Medical Record, Dec. 27, 1902).