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285
[1909
Recollect that milk is a universal food, and the chief food of our young
children, and, therefore, everything that is possible should be done to protect
it from adulteration.
The Americans have found out how necessary it is to protect milk from
admixture with separated milk, and, therefore, it was with no surprise that I
discovered on consulting their State Laws that no less than 16 of the principal
States, many of them containing cities ranging from a million and a half down
to thirty thousand inhabitants, have made laws which compel the sale of
separated milk in vessels, such as churns, cans, and bottles, plainly labelled.
Under these circumstances there ought to be no difficulty in getting such a law
passed, or a regulation made under the Public Health (Regulations as to
Food) Act, 1907, in England. There is certainly sufficient warrant for such
action.
Lastly, I think that the persons dealing in separated milk should be compelled
to keep registers showing the method of its disposal, much in the same
way that wholesale dealers in margarine are compelled to keep books, and
that these books should be open to official inspection.
It is an unfortunate thing that it should be necessary to make these
suggestions, but the undoubted very general adulteration of milk with
separated milk, a by-product in the manufacture of butter, confirmed as the
fact has been by the recent prosecution, has forced me to make them.
3. I do not propose to pursue the argument with respect to the official
standard of milk. My views on the subject are well known to you and are to
be found in many of my reports, and in nearly all my annual reports. I will,
therefore, content myself with saying that this trial proved that eight quarts of
separated milk could be added to a churn of milk and still escape a prosecution
for the abstraction of fat. The standard is too low, and so long as it
remains at 3.0 per cent., so long will it be a temptation to milk purveyors to
add separated milk to the whole milk. The regulation is an immoral regulation,
and should be altered.
I am,
Your faithful servant,
A. E. HARRIS,
Medical Officer of Health.
Town Hall, Islington, N.,
21st June, 1909.