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20
The retail shops from which samples of milk containing dirt were purchased
were found on inspection to be generally satisfactory. As a result of enquiries it
was found that the milks were obtained from various wholesale dealers and
communications were addressed to the dealers concerned. Where the depots of
the dealers were outside the Borough information was also sent to the Medical
Officers of Health of the districts concerned.
In one case a wholesaler replied that all milk supplied from the Company's
depot "is strained as it comes from the farms, cleaned through a Titan Cleaner
and afterwards pasteurised by the positive holding process of pasteurisation."
In dealing with dirty milk and with milk with bacterial infection local
authorities are seriously handicapped by reason of their inability to trace the milk
to its source. The modern practice of collecting milk from many farms to large
creameries and milk depots, where it is mixed and pasteurised, prevents the
possibility of tracing either dirty or infected milk to the source of production.
We also obtained evidence of the presence of dirt in milk from the
bacteriological examinations mentioned above.
In the cases of two of the samples where examination was made by animal
inoculation the animals died a few days after inoculation. The organisms isolated
in one case were B. coli, streptococci, B. enteritidis sporogenes, and in the other
streptococci, B. enteritidis sporogenes, but no evidence of tubercle infection was
found in either case.
In the first of these the address of the farm from which the milk came was
obtained and a communication was sent to the County Medical Officer of Health
concerned, who in his reply said: —
I am not at all surprised that an average milk, produced under present
conditions, after it has gone to London, and the coli and other organisms
multiplied in transit, killing a guinea pig."
He arranged for the dairy to be inspected and subsequently the following
report of the inspection was received: —
"The dairy is clean and airy, the cowsheds are good, but were not as
clean as I should like them to be. I advised more care with regard to the
milkers' hands, the wearing of clean smocks, the cleansing of the udders and
the use of covered milk pails."
In the case of the second sample the supply, a mixed milk from a Wholesale
Company, was delivered to a central branch of the Holbon retailer and conveyed
by him to his retail shop in this Borough. Another sample of milk in which dirt
was disclosed also came from the same retailer. As the result of communications
with this trader he agreed to take further precautions by conveying the milk from
his central depot to his retail shop in this Borough in a dust-proof churn.
It cannot be emphasised too much that it is the invisible dirt in milk, i.e.,
bacteria, that the milk trade should endeavour to prevent. The effort, however,
to get rid of the grosser impurities in milk will inevitably bring the effort to prevent
bacterial contamination in its train.