At the turn of the 20th century, Indiana was hailed as a national leader in public health issues. This was almost entirely due to the work of two unusually outspoken scientists.

在20世纪初，印第安纳州被誉为国家公共卫生问题的领导者。这几乎完全归功于两位特别的直言不讳的科学家的努力。

One was Harvey Washington Wiley, a one-time chemistry professor at Purdue University who had become chief chemist at the federal Department of Agriculture and the country’s leading crusader for food safety. The other was John Newell Hurty, Indiana’s chief public health officer, a sharp-tongued, — official who was relentlessly determined to reduce disease rates in his home state.

其中一位是哈维·华盛顿·威利，他曾是普渡大学(Purdue University)的化学教授，后来成为联邦农业部(Department of Agriculture)的首席化学家，也是美国食品安全领域的领军人物。另一位是印第安纳州首席公共卫生官约翰·纽厄尔·赫迪，他言辞犀利——是一位不屈不挠决心降低其家乡州疾病发病率的官员。

Hurty began his career as a pharmacist, and was hired in 1873 by Col. Eli Lilly as chief chemist for a new drug manufacturing company the colonel was establishing in Indianapolis. In 1884, he became a professor of pharmacy at Purdue, where he developed an interest in public health that led him, in 1896, to become Indiana’s chief health officer. He recognized that many of the plagues of the time — from typhoid to dysentery — were spread by lack of sanitation, and he made it a point to rail against “flies, filth, and dirty fingers.”

赫迪的职业生涯始于药剂师，1873年，他受雇于Eli上校，为他在印第安纳波利斯建立的一家新药制造公司担任首席化学家。1884年，他成为普渡大学的一名药剂学教授，在普渡大学，他对公共卫生产生了兴趣，并在1896年成为印第安纳州的首席卫生官。他认识到当时的许多瘟疫——从伤寒到痢疾——都是由于缺乏卫生设施而传播的，“苍蝇、污秽和脏手指”成为他重点批评的对象。
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Hurty and many of his colleagues found that milk — messily adulterated, either teeming with bacteria or preserved with toxic compounds.
Hurty was far from the first to rant about the sorry quality of milk. In the 1850s, milk sold in New York City was so poor, and the contents of bottles so risky, that one local journalist demanded to know why the police weren’t called on dairymen. In the 1880s, an analysis of milk in New Jersey found the “liquifying colonies [of bacteria]” to be so numerous that the researchers simply abandoned the count.

赫迪和他的许多同事还发现，牛奶被胡乱掺假，要么充满了细菌，要么含有有毒化合物。
赫迪并不是第一个抱怨牛奶质量不好的人。在19世纪50年代，纽约市出售的牛奶质量很差，瓶装牛奶也很充满卫生风险，以至于一位当地记者要求知道为什么没有警察去找牛奶场的工人调查此事。19世纪80年代，对新泽西州牛奶的一项分析发现，牛奶中漂浮的菌落如此之多，以至于研究人员干脆放弃了计数。

But there were other factors besides risky strains of bacteria that made 19th century milk untrustworthy. The worst of these were the many tricks that dairymen used to increase their profits. Far too often, not only in Indiana but nationwide, dairy producers thinned milk with water (sometimes containing a little gelatin), and recolored the resulting liquid with dyes, chalk, or plaster dust.
They also faked the look of rich cream by using a yellowish layer of pureed calf brains. it really did look like cream but it coagulated when poured into hot coffee.”

但除了危险的细菌菌株外，还有其他因素使得19世纪的牛奶极不安全。其中最糟糕的莫过于奶牛场老板用来增加利润的许多花招。不仅在印第安纳州，在全国范围内，乳制品生产商经常用水稀释牛奶(有时添加一点明胶)，然后用染料、粉笔或石膏灰将牛奶重新染色。
他们还用一层淡黄色的牛脑泥来伪造浓奶油。 牛脑泥确实看起来像奶油，但倒入热咖啡后会凝结。”

Finally, if the milk was threatening to sour, dairymen added formaldehyde, an embalming compound long used by funeral parlors, to stop the decomposition, also relying on its slightly sweet taste to improve the flavor. In the late 1890s, formaldehyde was so widely used by the dairy and meat-packing industries .

最后，如果牛奶即将发酸，那么奶牛场工人会加入甲醛(一种殡仪馆长期使用的防腐化合物)来阻止牛奶分解，同时也会依靠甲醛的微甜味道来改善牛奶的味道。 19世纪90年代末，甲醛在乳制品和肉类加工业中被广泛使用

In late 1900, Hurty’s health department published such a blistering analysis of locally produced milk that The Indianapolis News titled its resulting article “Worms and Moss in Milk.” The finding came from an analysis of a pint bottle handed over by a family alarmed by signs that their milk was “wriggling.” It turned out to be worms, which investigators found had been introduced when a local dairyman thinned the milk with ‘‘stagnant water.”

在1900年后期，赫迪的卫生部门发表了一篇关于当地生产的牛奶的严厉批评分析，以至于《印第安纳波利斯新闻报》(The Indianapolis News)将其分析文章命名为《牛奶中的蠕虫和苔藓》(Worms and Moss In milk)。 分析样本来自于一个家庭送来的一品脱牛奶，该家庭对牛奶“蠕动”的现象感到担忧。 调查人员发现，这是当地奶场主用“死水”稀释牛奶时带入的蠕虫。

The health department’s official bulletin, published that same summer, also noted the discovery of sticks, hairs, insects, blood, and pus in milk; in addition, the department tracked such a steady diet of manure in dairy products that it estimated that the citizens of Indianapolis consumed more than 2,000 pounds of manure in a given year.

同年夏天，卫生部发布的官方公报也指出，在牛奶中发现了树枝、毛发、昆虫、血液和脓液; 此外，该部门跟踪调查了人们日常食用的乳制品中的粪肥含量，并估计印第安纳波利斯的居民每年会吃下超过2000磅的粪肥
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Hurty, who set the sharply pointed tone for his department’s publications, added that “many [child] deaths and sickness” of the time involving severe nausea and diarrhea — a condition sometimes known as “summer complaint” — might instead be traced to a steady supply of filthy milk. “People do not appreciate the danger lurking in milk that isn’t pure,” he wrote after one particularly severe spate of deaths.

赫迪为他部门的出版文章设定了尖锐的基调，他补充说，当时有“许多[儿童]死亡和生病”时会出现严重的恶心和腹泻——这种情况有时被称为“夏季疾病”——可能与持续供应的脏牛奶有关。 在一次特别严重的死亡事件后，他写道:“人们没有意识到不干净的牛奶中潜藏的危险。

The use of formaldehyde was the dairy industry’s solution to official concerns about pathogenic microorganisms in milk. In Hurty’s time, the most dangerous included those carrying bovine tuberculosis, undulant fever, scarlet fever, typhoid, and diphtheria. (Today, public health scientists worry more about pathogens such as E. coli, salmonella, and listeria in untreated or raw milk.)

官方担心牛奶中含有致病微生物，而使用甲醛是乳制品行业解决这一问题的办法。 在赫迪生活的时代，最危险的莫过于牛奶中含有结核病、波状热、猩红热、伤寒和白喉等病原体。 (如今，公共卫生科学家更担心未经处理或生牛奶中的大肠杆菌、沙门氏菌和李斯特菌等病原体。)

The heating of a liquid to 120 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes to kill pathogenic bacteria was first reported by the French microbiologist Louis Pasteur in the 1850s. But although the process would later be named pasteurization in his honor, Pasteur’s focus was actually on wine. It was more than 20 years later that the German chemist Franz von Soxhlet would propose the same treatment for milk. In 1899, the Harvard microbiologist Theobald Smith — known for his discovery of Salmonella — also argued for this, after showing that pasteurization could kill some of the most stubborn pathogens in milk, such as the bovine tubercle bacillus.

19世纪50年代，法国微生物学家路易斯·巴斯德(Louis Pasteur)首次发表了将液体加热到120至140华氏度持续20分钟来杀死致病菌的方法。
尽管这个过程后来被命名为巴氏杀菌法以纪念他，但当时巴斯德实际上是想把该方法用在葡萄酒上。
20多年后，德国化学家弗朗茨·冯·索克莱特(Franz von Soxhlet)对牛奶提出了同样的处理方法。 1899年，以发现沙门氏菌而闻名的哈佛大学微生物学家西奥博尔德·史密斯(Theobald Smith)也提出了这一观点，因为他发现巴氏杀菌法可以杀死牛奶中一些最顽固的病原体，比如牛结核杆菌。

But pasteurization would not become standard procedure in the United States until the 1930s, and even American doctors resisted the idea. The year before Smith announced his discovery, the American Pediatric Society erroneously warned that feeding babies heated milk could lead them to develop scurvy.

但是巴氏杀菌法直到20世纪30年代才成为美国的标准生产程序，甚至连美国的医生们都曾反对这个方法。 在史密斯宣布发现的前一年，美国儿科学会错误地警告说，给婴儿喂热牛奶可能会导致坏血病。
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Such attitudes encouraged the dairy industry to deal with milk’s bacterial problems simply by dumping formaldehyde into the mix. And although Hurty would later become a passionate advocate of pasteurization, at first he endorsed the idea of chemical preservatives.

这种态度鼓励了奶制品行业，他们继续向牛奶中掺入甲醛来解决牛奶中的细菌问题。 虽然赫迪后来成为巴氏杀菌法的热情倡导者，但他最初也支持在牛奶中添加化学防腐剂。

In 1896, desperately concerned about diseases lixed to pathogens in milk, he even endorsed formaldehyde as a good preservative. The recommended dose of two drops of formalin (a mix of 40 percent formaldehyde and 60 percent water) could preserve a pint of milk for several days. It was a tiny amount, Hurty said, and he thought it might make the product safer.

1896年，由于极度担心牛奶中的病原体会导致疾病，他甚至认为甲醛是一种很好的防腐剂。 推荐剂量为两滴福尔马林(40%的甲醛和60%的水的混合物)可以保存一品脱牛奶好几天。 赫迪说，这是很小的量，他认为这可能会使产品更安全。

But dairymen began increasing the dose of formaldehyde, seeking to keep their product “fresh” for as long as possible. Chemical companies came up with new formaldehyde mixtures with innocuous names such as Iceline or Preservaline. (The latter was said to keep a pint of milk fresh for up to 10 days.) And as the dairy industry increased the amount of preservatives, the milk became more and more toxic.

但奶场主开始增加甲醛的剂量，试图尽可能长时间地让他们的产品保持“新鲜”。 化学公司也研发出了新的甲醛混合物，它们的名字听起来无害，比如Iceline或Preservaline。 (据说后者能将一品脱新鲜牛奶保存多达10天。) 随着乳业增加防腐剂的用量，牛奶变得越来越有毒。

Hurty was alarmed enough that by 1899, he was urging that formaldehyde use be stopped, citing “increasing knowledge” that the compound could be dangerous even in small doses, especially to children. But the industry did not heed the warning.

到1899年，赫迪以“不断增长的新研究知识”为理由，敦促停止使用甲醛，因为这种化合物即使很小的剂量也很危险，对儿童的伤害尤甚。 但乳制品行业并未理会这一警告。
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In the summer of 1900, The Indianapolis News reported on the deaths of three infants in the city’s orphanage due to formaldehyde poisoning. A further investigation indicated that at least 30 children had died two years prior due to use of the preservative, and in 1901, Hurty himself referenced the deaths of more than 400 children due to a combination of formaldehyde, dirt, and bacteria in milk.

1900年夏天，《印第安纳波利斯新闻》报道了该市孤儿院三名婴儿因甲醛中毒而死亡的事件。 进一步调查表明，至少有30名儿童在两年前死于防腐剂，1901年，赫迪自己引用了400多名儿童的死亡案例，指出死亡原因是牛奶中的甲醛、污垢和细菌。

Following that outbreak, the state began prosecuting dairymen for using formaldehyde and, at least briefly, reduced the practice. But it wasn’t until Harvey Wiley and his allies helped secure the federal Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 that the compound was at last banned from the food supply.

在那次疾病事件爆发之后，该州开始起诉使用甲醛的奶场主，这在短时间内减少了奶场主添加甲醛的做法。 直到1906年，哈维·威利和他的盟友才帮助确保了联邦《纯净食品和药物法案》的通过，甲醛这种化合物才最终被禁止进入食品供应。

In the meantime, Hurty had become an enthusiastic supporter of pasteurization, which he recognized as both safer and cleaner. When a reporter asked him if he really thought formaldehyde had been all that bad for infants, he replied with his usual directness: “Well, it’s embalming fluid . I guess it’s all right if you want to embalm the baby.”

与此同时，赫迪已经成为巴氏杀菌法的热情支持者，他认为这种方法既安全又清洁。 当记者问他是否真的认为甲醛对婴儿有害时，他像往常一样坦率地回答说:“嗯，这就是一种防腐剂，如果你想给婴儿防腐，我想那是可以的。