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119
No sample was taken at cowshed B because there was no clean shed or yard
available as a milking place, and the ordinary cowshed with the usual atmosphere
and teeming microbes from disturbed litter, was quite an unfit place in which
to expect a clean environment. In the old days it was customary to have
milking sheds. In Jean Ingelow's poem of the High Tide on the coast of
Lincolnshire, Elizabeth calls " come up Jetty — Jetty, to the milking-shed."
I)r. Eyre, the bacteriologist, who has examined many milks drawn in different
circumstances, assured me that the air of the ordinary cowshed contains an
immense number of micro organisms, that the least disturbance of litter raises
them in clouds, and numbers of these organisms get into milk drawn in cowsheds,
and that to obtain cleanly drawn milk a cow must be milked in the open
yard or in an open milking shed recently washed down. The numerous
experiments of Messrs. A. L. Haeeker and C. \V. .Mellick (Nebraska State
Bulletin, No. 87), the results of which were reported in "Public Health,"
September, 1906, page 703, also point straight to the same conclusion,
namely, that milking in ordinary cowsheds " even when these are in the best
condition," leads to the contamination of the milk.
There remain the two samples from cowsheds C. and A. If the two samples
from these cowsheds in the first series be compared with those in the second
series, a great fall in the number of microbes per c.c. will be noticed, namely,
from ten figures to four figures, and this is a measure of the difference of
cleanliness in the two series.
It will be observed in both series all the milks, except one, are nearly free
from gross contamination or as it is termed " apparent filth," o or 10 parts
per million parts in volume being an exceedingly small amount.
It will be noticed that in both series all the milks contain an excess of
acidity, due to the cows being fed upon wet brewers grains. So long as thesa
grains are used to feed cows the milk of such animals is very liable to cause
intestinal trouble to hand-fed infants of suckling age, and it is not desirable to
recommend mothers in want of breast milk to feed their infants upon milk
drawn from cows so fed in the St. Pancras cowsheds.
In regard to the result of the examination of the sample in the first series
from cowshed A, it states that "a few pus corpuscles" were found. There is
some doubt about this, because this sample was drawn in a cowshed,
whose owner takes most enlightened views, whose cattle are very fine,
and kept in excellent health, who rents pasturage in one of the large open
spaces of St. Pancras, and for exercise and change takes a certain number of
his cows to and from the cowshed to the pasture daily. He is sending in plans
to the London County Council for great improvements in his cowshed, and
proposes to construct a special milking shed of four stalls, to keep a herd of
Jersey cows only, and to supply milk specially for hand-fed infants of suckling
age. He expresses his willingness to comform to regulations as to feeding,
cleanliness, milking of the cows, etc., etc., and to carry out all the essential
conditions necessary to produce a milk that can be recommended for handfed
suckling infants.