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"My own child was reared on it until the age of nine
months, and I can speak of it in terms of unqualified approval.
It has suited her admirably, and she has never once
been sick during the whole period, and has grown up strong
and healthy in every way."
"My own child has taken it entirely from the age of twoto
fourteen months, and is now a most healthy child in every
respect."
In May, 1903, the South-West London Medical Society
passed a unanimous resolution approving the action of the
Borough Council in establishing the DepÔt.
The medical testimony is the most reliable evidence at
present available. The opinion of a practitioner who has
prescribed the milk largely and has had opportunities of
observing its effects must be of more value than the rough
results, which are all that can be hoped for from
the treatment of the available statistical data. Further
experience and reflection confirms the opinion I expressed in
my last Annual Report, that it is doubtful whether the value
of these institutions can be expressed in figures. It is well
that this should be strongly emphasised, as there is a tendency
for the public to demand that for every measure of diseaseprevention
there shall be produced a full and ample
statistical proof within a short time after its adoption. As
a matter of fact, there are very few preventive measures whose
value can be demonstrated inductively by statistics, as in the
case of vaccination. To obtain a reliable result it is necessary
to disentangle, isolate and measure one only out of a multitude
of closely-linked and inter-dependent phenomena, and statistical
science is not yet in possession of sufficient data to enable
this to be done except in a very few cases. The Fiscal
controversy has been an object lesson in the dangers of
statistical arguments. A table which appears to demonstrate
the case on one side of the question can, by a little
re-arrangement and amplification, be made to afford,
apparently, crushing evidence on the other side. In dealing
with disease the danger is even greater, and in the case of Milk