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46
Milk is such an important article of diet that extra precautions
to guard its purity are urgently demanded in this
country where the milk supply is by no means so well protected
as it is in some other countries (notably Denmark). In the
near future public opinion will demand such further protection,
and having regard to the value of the measure suggested, the
small cost incidental to its adoption should not be allowed to
prove an obstacle.
I have only one further point to make: it affects the large
Dairy Companies; and the Company concerned in the recent
outbreak has favourably received my recommendation. It
is the general practice to mix together the milk from several
different farms before it is distributed, and hence the milk
from one farm, being infected, may infect the whole of the
remainder. This fact is not only responsible for an outbreak
being distributed over a wide area, but it complicates the work
and expense of tracing the source of the infection. It would
therefore be a valuable step if, in the case of large supplies,
the milks from different farms were not mixed, and the small
area of supply of the milk for each separate farm were carefully
recorded. I recognise that there are difficulties in carrying
out this recommendation in its entirety, but a partial application
would be very advantageous.
It must be confessed that the real cause of these outbreaks
is wrapped in considerable obscurity. If a condition of the
cow is really the cause, then the main symptom of that disease
appears to be Mammitis. I do not believe that ordinary
Mammitis can give rise to such outbreaks, although it is conceivable
that if out of a herd of cows several of them may be
suffering from the condition at the same time, the large
numbers of pyogenic organisms present might be capable of