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100
A Register book is kept containing the name of the occupier,
situation of premises, and date of registration. In the same
Register is kept a record of all cases of infectious disease
occurring at milk-shops and dairies, with the dates of occurrence
and disinfection.
It will be understood that, with few exceptions, these 280
milk-sellers receive their supply from wholesale dealers and
contractors. Contractors not infrequently receive their wholesale
supply from places in the country at a considerable distance from
London; such a supply, often thousands of gallons in quantity,
reaches London by rail; the contractors' carts convey the milk
in milk-churns at an early hour of the morning from the railway
station to the milk-shop. Such a contractor would supply scores
of milk-shops. He does not, however, know at which shops the
milk from certain farms is delivered. Moreover, in many cases
a milk-shop will deal with two or more contractors, thus still
further complicating the business.
At present it may be said that whilst we have in operation
registration of milk-shops and some control over their management,
there is little or no protection of the milk itself. A person
buys some milk at his doorstep which comes from a small milkshop,
which is supplied by a milk contractor, who is supplied by
a large number of farmers in remote districts of the country, the
purchaser, the purveyor, and the contractor all being entirely
ignorant of the fact that this particular milk may be derived from a
farm on which an infectious disease is prevalent. I am strongly
of opinion such a contractor should, in the first place, keep a
register of the farms from which he obtains his milk supply and
every part of his supply; in the second place, he should keep an
exact register of the destination, the milk-shops, to which the
milk from every farm with which he deals is delivered; and, in
the third place, he should only deal with farmers willing to
furnish him with a written guarantee that they will inform him
immediately of any outbreak of infectious disease in man or
animal upon their farms. By these three comparatively simple