The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (Oxford History of the United States)

by Richard White

Dairies concentrated cows near breweries and distilleries, where they could eat the spent grain—swill—left at the end of the distilling process. This proved profitable, but it left the cows badly nourished and sickly, and they produced pale blue milk, which was mixed with chalk, molasses, flour, starch, plaster of Paris, sugar, and other substances until it resembled ordinary milk in texture and color.66 Milk from urban dairies contributed to the soaring infant death rate in New York and other cities. A staple of the urban poor, milk carried “tuberculosis, typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and streptococcal germs.” The diseases came from sick cows, and dairy operators exacerbated the problem by diluting their milk with impure water.