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85
In many other parts of London and England, samples have also been taken
and similarly examined with similar results.
I.—With regard to tubercle bacilli and the streptococci of pus, the former
is taken as evidence of tuberculous affection, and the latter of inflammatory
condition of the udder of the cow, and these can be almost eliminated by
the careful veterinary examination of cows. The London County Council,
since 1899, has caused the cows in London cowsheds to be periodically examined
by their Veterinary Inspectors under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts
with good results, and if all other Local Authorities outside London could
have sufficient pressure brought to bear upon them to cause similar periodical
and careful examination to be made by Veterinary Inspectors, these two
sources of unwholesomeness would almost disappear.
II.—With regard to the dirtiness of milk and to the presence of an excessive
number of micro-organisms, these conditions may be due to a variety of
causes during the numerous different stages through which milk passes in its
journeyings from the udder of the cow in a distant country farm to the
consumer in a city. The only kind of control that appears practically
exercisable over the cleanliness of milk is the enforcement of some standard of
the maximum amount of dirt permissible. The total exclusion of microbes is
impossible, and even the partial exclusion is a difficult matter to deal with in a
direct way, but in an indirect manner the excessive number of organisms now
commonly present may be reduced. These organisms are introduced from
without in company with dust and dirt, and they multiply themselves in direct
ratio with the rise of temperature in milk exposed to air and sun, and with the
length of time that the milk remains unconsumed. Therefore the factors to be
dealt with are temperature, freshness, and cleanliness The effects of temperature
require to be mitigated mainly in warm weather by protection from the
direct rays of the sun during summer, supplemented by additional cooling
during the dog-days. The stateness of milk is brought about by excessive
delays and distances of transit; curtailment of these will ensure greater
freshness, or special means of cooling in special receptacles or conveyances
will effect the same object. But unfortunately, instead of protecting milk
against heat and delay, preservatives more or less injurious to health are
added to milk, substituting an invisible injury for the visible or appreciable
injuries of sourness or decomposition, by which the purchaser can judge
for himself. This is deception, as if it were totally prohibited to add preservatives
to milk, as recommended by the Departmental Committee of the
Local Government Board in its Report of January, 1901, in the absence of
preservatives milk improperly cared for would become recognisably unfit for
consumption much sooner than milk properly cared for.
If then some standard of the extraneous solid contents permissible in milk
sold to the public were adopted, it would be possible for Sanitary Authorities
to exercise control over the cleanliness of milk. Such control would cause
retailers to more carefully protect their milk, and the influence of this impulse
to greater cleanliness would be carried backwards through the numerous
stages far away to the cow whence the milk is originally derived.