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at the hands of the authorities on importation. The inspection of food in general and its cleanly production
and preparation at the place of packing for export, and an acceptable guarantee that it is
suitably supervised throughout its history, would seem to be a direction in which protection can be
afforded, as and when the nations get further together.
Indications are by no means wanting that the importers as a whole are as eager to have regulations
which can lead to imports of sound food as are those invested with the powers which must in
cases of necessary enforcement be a nuisance to all concerned. But over and above the incentive due
to trouble and loss caused by enforcement of regulations, in the methods of importers and manufacturers,
can be seen the underlying consciousness of that sacro-sanctity of food which must in itself
be a great protection to a people gregarious and therefore undergoing civilisation.
Protection by Regulation.
Tuberculosis in food is now as fully under regulation as the subject is vast. The agricultural
community, which is fairly conservative in method, was originally bewildered by the findings on tuberculosis
in cattle, and especially in milch herds, and had not yet recovered before Koch's dicta occasioned
very considerable modification and confusion of the then current thought which identified all
strains of the bacillus. The idea and fact of drinking tuberculosis in milk, no less than that of eating
tuberculosis in beef and pork, is repugnant, whatever the danger. The danger to children is grave.
The best place of solution of difficulty, whether in milk or meat, would seem to lie at the source and
require time for its compassing.
As regards milk, through exercise of the regulations, the cow supplying tuberculous milk can be
sought out and removed from the milch herds. But mere removal of the animal producing the bacillus,
or even the removal of reactors to the tuberculin test, may not be the correct line in production of
a tubercle-free herd. It may be that calving confined to animals of a resistance to tuberculosis, which
is proven by their arrival at age without infection, might yield a tuberculo-resistant and therefore
truly tubercle-free herd. Artificial selection in herds, for colour, milk yield and a whole series of other
points less or more valuable is constantly made ; why not artificial selection for the production of
a tubercle-resistant race of milch cattle, and thus the building up of herds which are truly tubercle
free because resistant to the infection ?
If tuberculosis is hereditary in the sense that some breeds or types or even members of the same
herd are more prone to the disease than others, surely resistance is obviously more hereditary in that
its possessors live to breed their kind. For the elimination of the tubercle bacillus from the milk
supply, reactors to the tuberculin test should not be calved for milch or breeding stock. It is to the
veterinary surgeon and the cattle breeder, the mcdical officer must look for help in the protection of
infant life, whatever the ultimate or intermediate plan of campaign may be. Meanwhile the mere
separation of the bacillus-producing animal from the herd for marketing as meat is a means of accentuating
nature's impetus in the production of a tuberculous-free species.
Infection through Foodstuff.
With regard to the commoner forms of food poisoning, there is no form of human bacillary dysentery
or enteritis which does not find easy transfer in food ; it is naturally food which bears the agents
to their seat of election for mischief ; hence the first principle of hygiene, the separation of ingesta
from excreta. With the exception of Botulism, the known bacterial food poisonings are all derived
from a previous case of the disease in the intestine of man or, much more rarely, animal. Hence
the need for search for a former human case of the disease and the line of contamination of the food
which may be the vehicle.
There lingers to-day the tradition that zymotic diseases are dirt bred and that general sanitation
(refuse removal, good drainage and so on) will eliminate them. This is more true of the intestinal
infectious diseases than others, and in 1850 was practically of paramount truth for them. Cleansing
now, however, has to be translated in different terms and narrowed to a very fine point. With the
most elaborate arrangements for removal of human excreta from ingesta, and the elimination of
general infection spread over the community, there has come into prominence an ultimate fortress
of intestinal poisons in the carrier, temporary or otherwise, who can start a series of chains of infection
through foodstuff, even where the general standard of cleanliness is high.
Sanitation of Food Factories.
The food factories in which the sanitary arrangements include such minutiae as manicure and
such weighty measures as medical supervision of the workers, are setting a high standard of public
health in food protection. Not all prepared or manufactured foods, however, are culture media of
election for organisms of the baneful type, and it is natural that in the fancy bakery and among sugary
delicacies at present these protections have their highest development and aesthetic value and their
lowest public health value, except for excellent spread by example of cleanly principles in connection
with food. The handling of raw milk and its products and manufactories of meat foods—especially
those in which scraps for some reason or another otherwise unsaleable are utilised—are those points
at which supervision of staff, stock and means to cleanliness are more necessary since these substances
handled, and thus infected, are good culture media.
Unbroken fruits do not give rise to these poisonings unless their surface is very newly infected,
obviously because the surfaces of fruits are always protected by some natural device against perforative
growth of living contaminations. Bloom persistent on raisins is a fair guarantee of their hygienic
conditions, though not always of their hygienic treatment before packing.