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were given by a Liverpool Councillor of the new Municipal Milk
Depots at Liverpool, five in number—the first having been
opened early in 1901. In addition, about 30 shops kept by
dairymen in various parts of the city sell the municipal milk, a
discount of 10 per cent. being allowed to the trade.
Statistics were brought before the Congress shewing what
were claimed as good results from the use of the municipal milk
for the feeding of infants extending over a period of nearly three
years. Of 6,295 infants fed upon the milk during the period
named (the average age at the commencement of the feeding
being 3½, months), "the infants thrived in the great majority of
cases, increasing in weight and remaining perfectly healthy."
Of a total 4,453 infants, fed from the depots direct (and carefully
followed up), and in conditions of health below the average, the
mortality was 78 per 1,000, as against 159 per 1,000 for the
whole city. In addition to these figures, there was given the
evidence of parents, of medical men, and of personal observation
of officials—all strongly pointing to instances, repeated over and
over again, in which to the use of the milk has been attributed
the saving of the child's life.
A large amount of circularising the people on the proper
feeding of infants is also being carried out in Liverpool, There
was, of course, a consensus of opinion that the high infantile
mortality (met with in towns and elsewhere) was due to very
many separate and distinct causes, and that, therefore, it was
not to be expected that the establishment of municipal depots
would wipe out such infantile mortality; 100 deaths per 1,000
births are, probably, unavoidable, being due to weakness at
birth, general constitutional defects, etc.
Before leaving the subject of milk, mention may be made of
the strange (to use no stronger term) account given by the
Sanitary Inspector of Folkestone of a typhoid outbreak due to
polluted milk, in Folkestone itself, "by which it would appear
that a certain milker, by some means, had been the probable
cause of about 200 cases of typhoid spread over a period of eight
years in that Boraugh. A certain cowman appeared to have the
power of translating typhoid from place to place; indeed, to
whatever farm he went, there typhoid appeared. So it went on
until the cowman was found other work to do than of attending
the cows."
Your delegates regard themselves as fairly average men in
common sense, but this method of explaining 95 per cent. of