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accumulate during wet weather in the autumn period, when
heavy rain converts it very much into the condition of quagmire.
The result is the cows in wading through this quagmire to the
sheds where they are milked are almost knee-deep, and their
teats get splashed—and there are reasons which make the
washing of teats prior to milking an undesirable procedure in the
colder months. Further the process of milking is conducted in
close juxtaposition to this large accumulation of filth—which is
giving off the most offensive odours the while, and there is
scarcely a fluid known to chemists that so readily absorbs and
retains such odours. It would be a distinct gain to health if at
the cost of some extra trouble the refuse from the sheds were in
every case promptly removed to a safe distance.
There is a further lesson that the outbreak teaches us :—An
epidemic occurs, we find unhealthy cows, and from other very
positive evidence we condemn the milk as the source of infection
and after 100 people have been exposed to suffering, if not death,
we are able to take measures that stamp out the disease. This is
not as things should be ! We should aim more at preventing the
epidemic. To my mind a thorough and systematic inspection of
all cows in each district at regular and short intervals should be
undertaken, and to that end a veterinary expert should be
appointed by several sanitary authorities in combination. It is a
monstrous thing that with these milk epidemics cropping up,
nothing whatever is done to prevent their recurrence, and that
the whole of our action is based upon the lines of preventing the
spread of the outbreak after it has already worked a vast amount
of harm, when it is an easy matter to proceed upon those lines of
true prevention that would aim at removing the possibility of
future outbreak. I am aware that it falls within the duty of the
Sanitary Inspector and myself to keep ourselves acquainted with
the sanitary condition of the Dairies and Cowsheds of the
District. All that we had recently done before the outbreak
occurred, but what is even of greater importance is that someone
acting under the Local Authority and possessing a good knowledge
of the diseases of cows should inspect the animals at least
every fortnight. In the absence of such a preventive measure
our only alternative is to stand by with folded arms and await
the next epidemic.