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No milk or cream shall be supplied from any farm on
which there is a case,of infectious disease.
It is clear that these conditions can only be fulfilled by a
dealer exercising exceptional care and possessing- an unusually
complete equipment. Nevertheless, it may be questioned
whether the objection under discussion can be completely met
while the supply at any point is under indirect control.
My own opinion is that all the processes involved in the
production of the milk supplied from a municipal milk depôt
should be under the direct supervision and control of the
responsible officers of the Sanitary Authority. In this connection
it is interesting to note the experience of the City of Rochester,
N.Y., U.S.A. In 1897 the municipality began a supply of
infants' milk on methods similar to those afterwards adopted
in several towns in this country. At first the milk was
pasteurised or sterilised as at Battersea, but in 1899 the
following method was adopted:—
"A central station at which the milk is prepared is
organised each season on a farm outside the city, where a
trained nurse and assistants have full control of the cows,
utensils, bottles, etc., and where all of the milk work is carried
on in a portable milk laboratory. Everything coming in contact
with the milk is thoroughly sterilised in steam sterilisers. The
milk itself it not subjected to any pasteurising or sterilising
process. Sterilising and pasteurising are only an open
invitation to the milkman to be careless in the production and
handling of milk.
"At the milk station on the farm the milk is taken from
clean, well-fed, tested cattle into sterile cans, which are carried
to the barn in sterile cheesecloth bags. Just before milking
the cows' udders are washed. A sterile cheesecloth fly cover
is placed over the cow, the first portion of the milk being
rejected. So soon as the cans are filled they are immediately
covered by a layer of cheesecloth held in position by a rubber
band. The cans of milk thus covered are immediately taken
from the barn into the laboratory, about 200 yards away, where
the milk is properly diluted, sweetened, and turned off into sterile
nursing bottles of various sizes of the Siebert type. The bottles
are corked with sterile rubber corks, placed in racks, covered