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Municipal Milk Supply.—As a necessary supplement to the creche, means should be provided
of supplying the infants with wholesome food, and it could be done at small cost by the establishment
of a Municipal Milk Depot. The suggestion may excite a smile, but ere long I hope to see
such work in full swing, as a part of ordinary municipal organization. Already such depots have
been established in important towns like St. Helens (the pioneer County Borough in this matter),
Liverpool, and the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea—to mention no others. I have been
favoured with much information on the subject by the respective Medical Officers of Health, but
will mention here one fact only to emphasize the value of a provision of suitable food for hand-fed
infants. At St. Helens the infant mortality in the borough, as a whole, in 1901 was 175 per 1,000
Among infants fed with the sterilized milk supplied by the depot the mortality was 106 per 1,000.
The cost to the rates in providing the milk, over and above the payments by the mothers, was
£157, and a moderate increase in the number of the customers would make the depot selfsupporting.
The capital outlay at St. Helens, and also at Battersea, was relatively small.
Assuming that infantile mortality can be reduced by all or any of the means above
referred to, the question recurs—Are the lives, from the point of view of the State, worth preserving ?
The answer must be in the affirmative, if it can be shown that children so saved have a reasonable
prospect of growing up to be healthy men and women. It may be suggested that the "stock" is of
doubtful quality often. Possibly. But given favourable conditions and surroundings, good fruit
may come of it. Let anyone compare the gutter children of yesterday with the blooming, healthy
boys to be seen on the training-ship, or in Homes, such as the " Waifs and Strays,"—hundreds,
nay, thousands of them. Their parents would scarcely know them again ! Many, very many, of
such children have been sent to Canada, where they have found an overflowing welcome in healthy
and happy homes. And there is room for tens, nay, hundreds of thousands. Not long since, Sir
Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister, addressing the Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool said—" The
Dominion has vast territories unpeopled, and what is needed is men and women to occupy them."
" Canada could sustain a population of a hundred millions—it has six millions." For generations
to come, therefore, that one great Dominion could absorb all our surplus population, and there is
still a surplus, although, as this report shows, it is a declining quantity.
The tenth report, in which this subject was brought to the attention of the Council, having
been referred to the Public Health Committee, I drew up for the further information of that body
the subjoined
Memorandum on Municipal Milk Supply.
The system of supplying pure sterilised humanized milk for the food of infants brought up
by hand "appears to have been originated by Dr. Dufour, at Fécamp in Normandy, a seaside town of
some 14,000 inhabitants where infantile mortality was high (247 per 1,000 in the years 1894-98),
and to have been followed by a great diminution in the number of deaths of infants fed on the
sterilized milk. Similar results have been attained at Havre.
" The first town in England to adopt the system was the County Borough of St. Helens,
Lancashire.* Liverpool subsequently adopted the system, which is also in operation at
Dukinfield and Ashton-under-Lyne.
" As an illustration of the importance of the question, reference may be made to an article
in The Lancet of September 20th, 1902, on ' Skimmed Milk and Mortality among Children in France,''
which goes to show the vital importance of milk fat in the diet of weaned infants. It is stated that
' mortality among infants and children, resulting from unsuitable or insufficient nutrition, is far more
prevalent in the north than in the south of France;' and 'what seems at first sight a strange paradox
is the fact that it is precisely in those provinces where there are the richest pasture lands and the
most abundant supply of excellent milk, that the children die from starvation. The reason is, however,
very simple. These provinces have a large home and export trade in butter, and all the milk
is skimmed to make butter In the south, where there is no such trade, the children are able to
obtain some milk that has not been skimmed; hence the startling difference in the death-rates.' A
further observation is made which applies generally, and equally to fresh milk and condensed milk,
viz., that ' the stress of poverty creates a strong temptation to buy the cheaper skimmed milk, and
thus the children are starved.' Skimmed milk, it is said, and flour or bread are boiled together, and
sometimes a spoonful of coffee or even of alcohol is added to it, and very young children and infants
are fed on this. The nutritive part of the milk is exported as Normandy or Brittany butter. The
grim remark is added that ' It is the skimmed milk that aids in " the manufacture of angels," which
is the most lucrative phase of the baby farmer's business.' But to resume.
* By the courtesy of Dr. F. Drew Harris, the Medical Officer of Health, I was enabled to present a copy of his report on
The Infant Milk Depot," containing a large amount of information, to each member of the Public Health Committee.