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1899] 226
of Islington, to visit the cow-sheds and examine the cows of a large
number of farmers in a midland grazing county. The experience
I then gained I shall never forget, for writing calmly on the subject
now, I can aver without any exaggeration that some of these places
were a disgrace to their owners, and a disgrace to the rural
authorities whose duty it was to supervise them. Cow-houses
were irregularly cleansed, their channels choked, their pavement
broken, their walls plenteously bespattered with dung, their
white-washing and ventilation neglected, and the animals were dirty,
especially their flanks and teats, while men with uncleanly clothes
and uncleanly hands milked the cows, which were not as a rule
such good class animals as those found in the Islington sheds.
Before any of the samples taken for examination in Islington were
forwarded to the Jenner Institute, where the milks were dealt with, I
inspected them to ascertain the amount of sediment they contained.
But first I should explain that the milks were drawn from the bottom
of the churns by means of glass pipettes, 4 feet 6 inches in length,
so that a fair portion of the sediment might be obtained. I found
that it contained dirt of all descriptions, broken debris, hay, chaff,
dust, and particles of cow dung. In some of the bottles, which
held a pint each, fully an eighth part of their contents was
sediment, and consequently I do not wonder that so large a proportion
as 81 out of 199, or 40.7 per cent., guinea pigs died before
the examination for the results of the inoculation could be made.
The milks noted with very dirty sediment, of which there were 25,
were farmers' milks, and represented 14 per cent. of all the farmers'
milks examined. There were also some 20 other milks with very
decided sediments.
The general result of the bacterological examination of the
milks was as follows:—
Milks obtained at Islington cow-houses * 16
Tests void 4
Positive results, bacilli found 1
Suspicious results, but bacilli not found 2
Negative results 9
* There are only 16 cow-houses in Islington.