The Chemistry of Cookery

particulars are familiar to all who read the newspapers. The necessity for boiling remains the same, whether we accept the germ theory or that of chemical poison, as such poison must be of organic origin, and, like other similar organic compounds, subject to dissociation or other alteration when heated to the boiling point of water. It is an open question whether butter may or may not act as a dangerous carrier of such germs; whether they rise with the cream, survive the churning, and flourish among the fat. The subject is of vital importance, and yet, in spite of the research fund of the Royal Society, the British Association, &c., we have no data upon which to base even an approximately sound conclusion. We may theorise, of course; we may suppose that the bacteria, bacilli, &c., which we see under the microscope to be continually wriggling about or driving along are doing so in order to obtain fresh food from the surrounding liquid, and therefore that if imprisoned in butter they would languish and die. We may point to the analogies of ferment germs which demand nitrogenous matter, and therefore suppose that the pestiferous wanderers cannot live upon a mere hydro-carbon like butter. On the other hand, we know that the germs of such things can remain dormant under conditions that are fatal to their parents, and develop forthwith when released and brought into new surroundings. These speculations are interesting enough, but in such a matter of life and death to ourselves and our children we require positive facts—direct microscopic or chemical evidence. In the meantime the doubt is highly favourable to ‘bosch.’ To illustrate this, let us suppose the case of a cow grazing on a sewage-farm, manured from a district on which enteric fever has existed. The cow lies down, and its teats are soiled with liquid containing the chemical poison or the germs which are so fearfully malignant when taken internally. In the course of milking a thousandth part of a grain of the infected matter containing a few hundred germs enters the milk, and these germs