Milk, when first secreted from the udder of a healthy cow or other lactating animal, is sterile, but it becomes invaded by bacteria almost immediately. Milk is a good medium for breeding bacteria of all kinds, good and bad. Any changes which occur in the milk after it is secreted are the result of bacterial action converging nutri-ents into other substances. If bacteria could be prevented from contaminating the milk drawn from the udder, it would remain sweet indefinitely; but this is an impossibility. John Harvey Kellogg performed an amazing experiment demonstrating this fact. He im-mersed a one-pound piece of raw meat, slightly tainted, in buttermilk. The milk was changed at regular intervals. The meat remained perfectly free of decomposition for some 20 years! This demonstrates the efficiency of an acid medium in inhibiting decay producing, putrefac-tive bacteria. Soured milk is also called turned, fermented, curdled and clabbered milk. The Bulgarians and Turks called it yogurt; the Russian calls it Kefir. Among the essential goods of some Nomadic people is a lump of casein milk curds, wrapped up to prevent its drying. This lump of casein is put into the milk bag containing the freshly drawn milk and allowed to remain there until the milk sours. Then the curd ball, rejuvenated in the pro-cess, is returned to its wrapping. Using this process, the Nomad knows his soured milk will not rot nor putrefy. In this condition, the milk retains its food value until it is used up. In more recent years, since the studies of Metchnikoff, fermented milk has been in great demand and widely used. It has been prescribed for better health in general and for a wide range of ailments, particularly those arising from intestinal and metabolic disturbances. �Metchnikoff is really the father of modern-time fermented milk. He made it popular and as the head of the Pasteur Institute in Paris stimulated a great deal of scientific study about the remedial value of fermented milk. He was an indefatigable worker on the subject of longevity. His experiments for attainment of better health and longer life attracted world-wide attention. He maintained that stasis and putrefaction of the bowel shortens life and causes diseases, early senility and premature death for which he recommended fermented milk best neutralizer and antidote. �He deduced this from the fact that the Bulgarians, Turks, Arabs, Jews and others who are addicted to the use of fermented milk as the English are to the afternoon tea, produce more centenarians than any other nationality, Bulgarians showing 1,500 centenarians out of every million of population. In America, only nine out of every million reach that age. No doubt the fact that these people use a great deal of fermented milk, and because it contains the very valuable lactic acid and the changed proteins, can be considered as a factor in their longevity. But, lest we forget, how about their simple fare, simple mode of living, the outdoor life they lead! Are these not just as important, perhaps more so, as factors in longevity than just fermented milk? �Metchnikoff inferred that their longevity was due solely to the fermented milk. He obtained a microbe which he called Bacillus Bulgaricus from the casein ball the Bulgarians used to induce souring in freshly drawn milk of their herd, and found it would indeed induce souring of milk, and very rapidly.

This paragraph comes from TISSUE CLEANSING THROUGH BOWEL MANAGEMENT By BERNARD JENSEN D.C., Nutritionist CHAPTER 6 INTESTINAL FLORA AND BOWEL GARDENING