infusions are made where a mastitis treatment may require only one or two infusions and since the counts subsequent to the first infusion show no further increase the chlorine dioxide infusion technique may be properly considered as minimally inflammatory these data are presented below in table i in this study there are no noticeable irritation effects in the animals and no abnormalities in the milk another important feature associated with the use of chlorine dioxide infusions for the control of mastitis is its fairly rapid reduction to chloride ion which is a common component of milk and tissues in general this reduction occurs by interaction with organic matter including bacteria when 1 part of a solution containing 250 ppm of combined chlorine dioxide chlorite ion is added to 9 parts of milk that is maintained at 37 u00b0 c for two hours of incubation neither of these species can be detected at the 5 ppm sensitivity limit of the procedure since chlorite is the first reduction stage of chlorine dioxide chlorine dioxide infusion into a cow 39 s udder would similarly be reduced to non detectability by the time the first milk is drawn from the animal several gallons minimally at least 6 8 hours after infusion at any rate pasteurization of the milk would guarantee the full destruction of the chlorine dioxide to safe chloride ion when antibiotics are used as traditional mastitis treatments they are not destroyed in this manner table i__________________________________________________________________________somatic cell counts before and after7 post milking infusions of 20 ml of 50 ppm clo sub 2 solutions pre treat post treatmentcow qtr day 0 day 1 day 2 day 3 day 4no pm am pm am pm am pm am pm__________________________________________________________________________405 lr 4 22 4 23 4 16 4 45 5 95 5 79.