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61
their homes, many hundreds of infant lives will be spared in London
alone. The existing Regulations in force in the Metropolis under
the Dairies, Cowsheds and Milkshops Order of 1885 were designed
20 years ago to deal with a very different state of matters from that
which now exists. The framers of the Regulations had in view a
city supplied with milk by a large number of dairymen, each of whom
kept a few cows which were housed either within the Metropolitan
area or in the immediate neighbourhood. Very few cows are now
kept within this area, and the milk supply is now in the hands of a
relatively small number of companies and individuals who obtain over
80 per cent. of the milk they supply from rural districts, often far
distant from the Metropolis, where the farmers are under practically
no sort of sanitary supervision or control.
Each Sanitary Authority in the Metropolis should be in possession
of the information as to where the milk consumed in the Borough
comes from, and should also have the power of requiring that conditions
similar to those laid down in the Regulations are observed,
and in addition that the cows are kept clean and the hands of the
milkers washed prior to milking. They should also require that
better arrangements are made for the proper conveyance of the milk
from the farmers to the distributors. Arrangements ought also
to be made for a frequent and thorough Veterinary Inspection of
the cows.
It is an anomaly that although the cowsheds and cows of the
Metropolis are kept up to a very fair standard the milk supply
of London should be so bad. The explanation of course is that any
milk, however filthy the conditions of its collection at the farm, finds
a ready market in London; whereas in the locality where it is produced
the dairy farmer might find it impossible to dispose of it;
certainly to those who know all the local facts of its collection.