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The Milk and Dairies Order, 1920, came into operation, on
the 1st March, 1926. This order provides for the registration
of premises as well as of persons. It places upon County or
County Borough Councils the responsibility for the inspection
of cattle and lays down certain standards required for the maintenance
of dairies and cowsheds in a sanitary condition. The
Order further gives the Medical Officer of Health authority to
enter registered promises and examine any persons suspected to
be suffering from infectious disease and to prohibit for specified
times infected persons from engaging in the milk trade. The
Medical Officer of Health may even stop a supply of milk for
a period of twenty-four hours (to be renewed if necessary) if
he is of opinion that any person within his district is suffering
from infectious disease caused by the consumption of such milk.
Cow-keepers must keep their cowsheds clean and must not allow
the access to any cowshed or milk store to be rendered uncleanly
with dung. Cows must be cleaned before being milked, milker's
hands must be washed and dried before milking and must as
far as practicable be kept dry. Milk must be cooled without
delay to a temperature not more than 5 degrees F. above the
temperature of the available water supply. Milk churns must
be provided with effective lids without "ventilation" openings,
and must not be opened during railway transit save by persons
having statutory authority in that behalf. When milk is delivered
in bottles, such bottles must be filled and closed on registered
premises, and no one is permitted to tamper with the discs used
for closing the bottles after they have left the dairy premises.
The Order, indeed, contains many provisions that should
help local sanitary authorities very considerably in obtaining
better regulation of the milk trade.
Eighteen samples of milk from roundsmen have been taken
by the Chief Inspector and submitted to bacteriological examination.
In all cases where the results proved unsatisfactory the
milk was not being sold under any of the official designations.
Clean Food Exhibition.—The Town Council was not only
the first local authority in this country to hold an exhibition
under the powers granted in the Public Health Act, 1925),
but was also the first to institute a campaign in favour of clean