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7
Arrangements have been made to have the produce of 3 Jersey
cows giving milk with a high percentage of cream.
The cows are inspected twice yearly by a Veterinary Inspector
employed by the London County Council. In this and other ways
precautions will be taken to insure the milk being as pure as
possible. But as, in spite of all precautions, milk occasionally
conveys the germs of disease from cows suffering from very mild
forms of illness, it is necessary to adopt the further precaution of
heating the milk to a temperature that will destroy these germs.
The milk will not be sterilized unless during hot weather. It will
be Pasteurised i.e., it will be raised to a temperature of 170 deg.
for 15 minutes. Such a temperature kills harmful microbes and
yet the physical changes in the milk are practically nil, and the
temperature remains far below boiling point. Sterilized milk may
occasionally cause scurvy. There is no evidence that Pasteurized
milk ever does this.
Arrangements have been made for delivering the milk, which
will constitute a new departure in municipal milk depots. The
Public Health Committee considered that the large extent of the
Borough, stretching as it does 7 miles in one direction and 33,- in
another, made it necessary either to liave several distributing
stations or to deliver the milk house to house. For various reasons
distributing stations are unsatisfactory, so it was decided to provide
a horse and cart to take the milk round to all who are willing to
pay a small extra charge.
WEIGHING OF BABIES.—At the French Depots, Gouttes de
Lait, all the children fed by the Depot are seen, weighed, and if
necessary prescribed for by one of the medical staff. This practice
is unfortunately impracticable with a Municipal Milk Depot, except
as regards weighing the children. It is hoped that at the Woolwich
Depot all children will be brought fortnightly to be weighed, their
progress tested and the suitability of the milk confirmed or
otherwise.
It now only remains to describe briefly the Process through
which the milk goes from the time it arrives at the Depot till its
delivery. The milk will arrive about 7 a.m. The churn will be
brought into the dairy and the milk tested by the "Gerber"
apparatus to see how much cream it contains. A certain part of it
will then be taken and the cream separated. The remainder will be
strained through a "Ulax" filter and modified by the addition of
milk-sugar for the younger ages, and cane-sugar for the older
children, and by the further addition of water and as much of the
separated cream as is necessary to bring the proportion of fat up
to a fixed scale. The milk will then be passed into a special automatic
bottle-filling apparatus, by which 4 bottles can be filled at one time.
Three different modifications suitable for three different ages will
be prepared, and the bottles will be filled with six varying
amounts suitable for each of these ages. The bottles, when filled,
will be closed with the "Alu" stopper, placed in baskets, and
conveyed on the trolley to the sterilizer ; the door will be shut, the
steam turned on and the milk Pasteurized as described above; the