Purdue University Agricultural Extension Service
Mimeo HE-130 January 1953 (3M)
PROTECTING FAMILY HEALTH WITH SAFE MILK
Nutrition Project Lois Oberhelman, Specialist
Today Indiana homemakers are anxious to learn better methods of handling milk in the home to improve the health of their families. They have learned through modern scientific research of some of the dangers of improper handling of milk.
They want to know the best methods of producing clean safe milk for their families and how to prevent some of the common diseases carried in improperly handled milk.
Milk is an absolute necessity for both young and old to meet the health needs.Without milk in the daily diet, ones meals cannot be balanced. Scientific studies have proven that when milk consumption was increased in a diet already well balanced the following evidences of good health resulted:
1.	Person made better use of other food eaten
2.	Child grew better
3. Child matured earlier.
4. Adult had more vitality.
5.	Adult had a longer period between attainment of maturity and onset of senility (longer prime of life).
6.	Person lived longer
7. Babies were born with much better health and had a better chance of living.
So it can readily be seen that good clean milk is an absolute necessity for everyone for 100% health.
1.	What diseases are carried in raw milk and its products?
Answer: - Typhoid fever, septic sore throat, Undulant fever, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, diphtheria, dysentery and other intestinal troubles, especially in infants and children.
2.	How do these disease producing bacteria get into the milk?
Answer: - Bacteria can be in the milk if it comes from a diseased cow or they may get into the milk from the cow's excreta or from an inflammation of the cow's udder. Milk may be contaminated by the milker, in other words, from a milk handler who is either ill or a carrier of the disease germs. Milk may also be contaminated by flies, other insects and rodents or from improperly cleaned utensils, dirty stables, careless handling or inadequate cooking and refrigeration.
3.	What is the connection between Undulant fever and Bangs Disease in cattle?
Answer - In 1897 Dr. Bernard Bang, a Danish veterinarian identified the organism that causes contagious abortion in cattle. Then about 1923 Dr. Alice Evans, an American, proved that the organisms of these two diseases were virtually identical. Other names for brucellosis are unduland fever, malta fever, and mediterranean fever.