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we must do the best possible under existing conditions, and that
involves sterilisation, modification, and protection from home contamination.
It is also essential that such a milk supply should be
under medical supervision and adopted only in suitable cases.
Without entering into unnecessary details, it would appear that
there are five possible means of supplying a suitable and pure milk
for infants—(1) By means of Municipal Milk Depots as at Battersea,
Liverpool and other places ; (2) By one or more milk vendors or
dairymen undertaking, by private enterprise, to furnish such
modified milk (certified) under medical supervision ; (3) By obtaining
such a supply from some central institution, company, or
society, such, for example, as the Walker-Gordon Laboratory ; (4) By
means of medical milk commissions, as is done, in part, by the milk
commissions established in the United States of America; (5) By
means of a voluntary health society supplying such milk under
necessary supervision and control of sources and usage, as is done,
in part, by the York Health and Housing Association.
The essential points requiring attention are (l) such modification
of the cow's milk as will make it, like human milk, suitable for
infant consumption, (2) absolute control of its source and handling
prior to its modification, and (3) prevention of home contamination
by delivery in sealed bottles. At present it would also be necessary,
frequently if not generally, to pasteurise or sterilise such milk.
In this connection it is my duty to report that the Social Workers'
Association of the Borough of Finsbury (established 1904),
appointed a Voluntary Health Committee during the year to carry
out various work in the Borough. Amongst other work this
Committee arranged for a series of lectures on Public Health
questions, to which reference is subsequently made. The Committee
also arranged for the establishment of a Modified Milk
Depôt,* to be managed after the manner of Budin and Dufour in
F ranee.
* The management was placed in the hands of a Medical Committee,
consisting of Evan Jones, M.R.C.S, D.P.H. (Chairman), E. N. Féré, M.D.,
Lewis Hawkes, M.D., W. F. Roe, L.R.C.S.I., J. E. Sandilands, M.D.,
F. Wallace Wilson, M.R.C.S., and George Newman, M.D. (Hon. Sec.).