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67
The points which therefore can be emphasised are:—
(1) That the milk is not transported from the farmer to the depots at a sufficiently
low temperature so that the small number of excremental organisms originally
present multiply greatly.
(2) That there is a want of care in the cleanliness of the receptacles into which the
milk is put, or the milk is left exposed to sources from which it gets infected
with saprophytic organisms.
(3) That there is a great multiplication of bacteria during the passage of the milk
from the wholesaler to the retailer and public.
(4) That the pasteurisation is not always as efficiently carried out as it should be, and
that there is a want of care in the cleanliness of the subsequent handling of
the milk.
For the supply of good milk as free as possible from bacterial contamination:—
(1) In 'addition to care re tubercle, health of the cows, scrupulous cleanliness of
the person who performs the operation of milking and the cleanliness of the
vessels,
(2) the milk should either immediately be placed in a refrigerator or should be as
quickly pasteurised as possible either at the farm or in some "creame y" in
the district where all farmers could take their milk for this purpose. Here
the same great care should be exercised re cleanliness of the whole procedure.
(3) The milk then can be conveyed to London in sealed receptacles in cooled vans
and sent to the dairies.
(4) In the dairies it should not be exposed, should be kept at a low temperature
and the best way would be to bottle it into sterile bottles for conveyance to
the consumer.
(5) All places where pasteurisation is carried out should be thoroughly and
constantly inspected to ensure proper cleanliness.
(Signed) F. H. TEALE.
Dr. Teale's detailed results may be considered in the light of the fact that the
Government's bacteriological standard for "Grade A (Certified) Milk" is that on examination
at any time before delivery to the consumer it must not contain Bacillus coli in one tenth
cubic centimetre (i.e. not more than 10 per cubic centimetre), or more than 30,000 bacteria per
cubic centimetre. The Government standard for Bacillus coli may also be applied to
Streptococci and spore-bearing anaerobes.
Farmers milk as delivered at the railway stations. The 18 samples (see table I) are
almost without exception very bad as judged by the above mentioned standard It will be seen
that Dr. Teale does not consider the original excremental pollution to have been serious and
that the bad condition of the milk was due to its transportion at too high a temperature, and
the absence of proper care as to the cleanliness of the containers, etc. The remedies for these
conditions would be found in proper cooling of the milk and in improved methods of handling
and transporting it.
The presence of living bovine tubercle bacilli in 2 out of the 18 samples illustrates the
present unsatisfactory state of affairs in regard to bovine tuberculosis and milk.