View report page

106
officers who have multifarious duties to perform under other Acts ;
and in the counties the magistrates, almost universally, have
entrusted the duty, to what little extent it is carried out, to the
police. Arrangements such as these are not calculated to ensure
the results intended by the legislature, and they do not meet with
the approval of sanitarians to whose representations the 34th
section of the Act and the Order itself may be said to be due.
These unsatisfactory arrangements formed the subject of
discussion at a Meeting of the Society of Medical Officers of
Health, held in December, 1880, when the following resolution
was unanimously adopted:—
"That in the opinion of this Society it is desirable, having
regard to the more effectual prevention of the spread of
zymotic disease by the agency of milk, that the special
sanitary supervision and inspection of cowsheds, dairies,
and milk shops should be entrusted to the Local
Authorities, to the Medical Officers of Health, and the
Sanitary Inspectors of the respective districts."
CATTLE DISEASES.
Cattle Diseases, "Foot and Mouth" (Eczema epizootica).—
In connexion with the subject of cowsheds reference may be here
made to this cattle disease, which has been very prevalent in the
country, many large districts having been "proclaimed." Several
cowsheds in London were declared " infected places," including
three in Kensington, and the Metropolitan Board of Works, as
Local Authority, under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act,
1878, and the Dairies, Cowsheds, and Milkshops Order, July, 1879,
addressed a letter to the Medical Officers of Health of the
Metropolis, directed to the question of enforcing the 8th section
of the above-named order, which prohibits the sale or use of the
milk of a diseased cow for human food—considering it desirable to
assist the Medical Officers of Health in preventing the dissemination
of disease by means of "contaminated milk." The Board
arranged to report the occurrence of cases, and also when the