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105
In milk shops it appears that nursing milk is rarely asked for across the
counter ; it is practically always ordered and consumed by the better class of
customers. The poor have not learnt that there is or should be any difference
between nursery milk and ordinary commercial milk, and so they rarely ask
for or buy the former. It follows that the samples of nursery milk purchased
and reported upon in this report are specimens of the very best milk supplied
in St. Pancras, and it is obvious how much these leave to be desired in the
matter of cleanliness and wholesomeness, and even some of these milks have
their chemical and bacteriological composition altered either in the feeding
of the cow or the handling of the milk.
I have come to the conclusion once more that the only satisfactory way of
preventing milk which I should call "nursing milk" for the sick and suckling
— that is, hand-fed infants and the bed-ridden sick, neither of whom can take
any other than milk diet,—is to have a special herd of cows in a special
dairy where " commercial" milk is not purveyed, the dairy being situated
close to the locality which it supplies, so that it may be under constant control
and very frequent supervision, be conducted on the latest up-to-date principles,
and deliver the milk for consumption immediately after milking.
The Bacteriological Examinations were made by Mr. John Eyre, M.D., and
the Chemical Examinations by Sir Thomas Stevenson, M.D.