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that if one supply should be infected and named there is no
guarantee that others which would be assumed to be safe are
so. All dairy supplies are liable—some, it is true, more than
others—to such a visitation of disease; and unless there is some
very tangible advantage to be gained, one hesitates to take
any step that might mean a heavy financial loss to persons
who take the same precautions as others, but who are less
fortunate. It was, therefore, judged safer and better in the
interests of all not to advertise the particular milk supply
involved, seeing that so soon as the outbreak came before my
notice a probable cause was discovered and promptly dealt
with.
There is a stern lesson which such outbreaks teach us:—
An epidemic occurs; we find unhealthy cows; and from other
very positive evidence we condemn the milk as the source of
the infection; and after many people have been exposed to
suffering, if not death, we are able to take measures that stamp
out disease. This is not as things should be. We should take
the necessary steps to prevent 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 lias already worked a vast amount of harm,
when it is an easy matter to proceed upon these lines of true
prevention that would aim at removing the possibility of
future outbreak. In the absence of such a preventive
measure as that indicated above, our only alternative is to
stand by with folded arms and await the next epidemic.