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92
Particulars as to milk adulteration will be found in the section
relating to the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts.
During the year 1907, public interest in the question of the milk
supply was stimulated by the issue of the second interim report of
the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis, which appeared in February.
This Commission was appointed largely in consequence of a remarkable
statement by Professor Koch at the Tuberculosis Congress in
1901. This statement was to the effect that the danger arising from
the consumption of tuberculous milk is so slight that it is not worth
while to take steps to guard against it. The Royal Commission
after a prolonged and careful study of the subject have arrived at a
very different opinion. Their conclusions are as follows :—
There can be no doubt but that in a certain number of
cases the tuberculosis occurring in the human subject,
especially in children, is the direct result of the introduction
into the human body of the bacillus of bovine tuberculosis ;
and there also can be no doubt that in the majority at least
of these cases the bacillus is introduced through cows' milk.
Cows' milk containing bovine tubercle bacilli is clearly a
cause of tuberculosis and of fatal tuberculosis in man.
A very considerable amount of disease and loss of life,
especially among the young, must be attributed to the
consumption of cows' milk containing tubercle bacilli. The
presence of tubercle bacilli in cows' milk can be detected,
though with some difficulty, if the proper means be adopted,
and such milk ought never to be used as food. There is far
less difficulty in recognising clinically that a cow is distinctly
suffering from tuberculosis, in which case she may be yielding
tuberculous milk. The milk coming from such a cow ought
not to form part of human food, and indeed ought not to be
used as food at all.
Our results clearly point to the necessity of measures
more stringent than those at present enforced, being taken
to prevent the sale or the consumption of such milk.
In view of the report of the Royal Commission, the Public
Health Committee decided to ascertain how far the milk supply of
Hampstead was tuberculous, and 25 samples of milk were taken