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112
"NURSERY MILK."
The two following reports, the first made on the 12th September and the
second on the 12th December, 1906, are so important that in order to fully
understand their bearings they must be quoted in exteniso:—
Report of the Medical Officer of Health upon "Nursery Milk,"
12th September, 1906.
On the 25th July last the Borough Council approved of the recommendation
of your Public Health Committee that, during the hot weather, thirty samples
of milk should be examined bacteriologically.
Accordingly, during the second and third weeks of August thirty specimens
of Nursery Milk were procured, so as to comply as closely as possible with the
intention of your Public Health Committee and the Borough Council to
examine milk intended for " hand-fed infants of suckling age."
In each case half a pint of milk was purchased, and drawn or poured
directly into a bottle provided by the Inspector, each bottle having previously
been thoroughly cleansed and repeatedly rinsed with hot and cold clean water,
then with a cork tied round the neck, thoroughly sterilised by high pressure
steam and hot air current in a disinfecting chamber, and corked in the chamber
before being removed.
These bottles, after cooling, were packed in ice in a portable metal case
holding four bottles, and so carried to the places where the specimens of milk
were purchased, and when filled and numbered were forthwith taken to the
Bacteriological Laboratories at Guy's Hospital, and the bacteriological
examinations were immediately commenced.
In the two Appendices, lettered A and B, hereto attached, the results of the
inquiry are tabulated. A describes the price and source of the specimen, and
B gives the results of the bacteriological examination.
This inquiry shows that, although Narsery Milk is advertised on hand-barrows,
floats, carts, and shop windows, the number of firms selling genuine Nursery
Milk which has been specially produced and particularly cared for are
extremely few of the total of 466 dairymen registered in St. Pancras, and also
that a large number of dairymen who do not advertise nursery milk and keep
no special Nursery Milk, nevertheless supply an article which they admit they
do not keep.
The Inspectors also report that they have not seen any milk marked or
labelled as " Nursery milk " delivered at any of the railway depots or stations
in St. Pancras.
The two main points apparent at first sight in the bacteriological examinations
are (1) that two of the specimens contained tubercle bacilli, neither of
which were from cowsheds in St. Pancras ; and (2) that the percentage of
acidity was excessively high in most of the specimens drawn directly from
cows in St. Pancras cowsheds. I attribute this largely to feeding the cows
upon wet brewers' grains, which, by personal inspection of the cowsheds, I
found to be undergoing secondary or acid fermentation, in the same manner as
beer ferments into vinegar. I should imagine that such milk would not be
beneficial to hand fed infants of suckling age, even if drawn directly from the
cow into a perfectly clean bottle.