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275
[1912
q. Delivery from such stores in bottles only.
r. Mixing of herd milk to get an article of uniform composition.
s. Bottling of the milk only at the dairy or place of general supply.
t. Daily sterilization of milk utensils.
u. More rigid inspection for preservatives in milk.
v. Chemical and bacteriological examination of milk.
w. Standards for cream and milk.
x. The passage of no law that cannot be reasonably enforced.
y. The publication of reports on inspection of dairies.
z. Education of milk producers by a liberal distribution of circulars,
leaflets, etc., bearing upon their work.
Some of these suggestions may seem to some persons very drastic, but
there is hardly one of them which cannot be fully justified.
It will be noticed that the supply of milk in bottles to the public is
insisted on, and anyone who has studied the matter in which milk is handled
in course of its delivery to customers by roundsmen, whose hands, to put it
mildly, are sometimes not too clean, and which cannot avoid being covered
with bacteria, must come to the conclusion that milk requires protection then. It
is, therefore, for these among many other reasons that the bottle delivery of
milk in the United States has become so general. The practice has been
introduced into this country, but up to the present only on a small scale. It
is, however, on the increase, and no doubt will one day supersede the present
method of delivery in cans or by direct measurement from a large handcan
to the jug of the consumer. A great deal might be said on the protection of
the milk supply, and, indeed, its importance would warrant it, but as it is no
new one to the Borough Council of Islington, to whom the Medical Officer of
Health has reported several times on the necessity for a pure milk supply, he
will not pursue the matter further now. He would, however, warn persons
who get milk in bottles to make sure that the bottles are filled at the dairy
and not in the street by the roundsman, as the Medical Officer of Health
has seen, who thus defeats the entire purpose for which the delivery
of milk in bottles was intended; and yet this man was in the employment
of a firm whose reputation is second to none in the milk trade of London.
The Milk Bill which was introduced into the House of Commons two years
ago still remains in a state of suspended animation, much to the discredit of
those by whom the delay has been caused. Looking impartially on the matter,
it seems to the Medical Officer of Health that this has not been due to the
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