irremediable. Many enterprising milk dealers have already demonstrated the enormous improvement that can be brought about in the quality of milk by attention to simple details of collection and transportation. A high authority says of the present New York City milk supply: "There is an inexcusable lack of cleanliness in the methods of procuring milk and of care in sufficiently cooling and keeping it during its transportation. Even in the matter of sending milk to the railroad many farmers take twenty-four hours more than is necessary, keeping back one half of their milk in order to save the trouble and expense of making more than one trip each day to the station."[1]
In addition to the dangers and disadvantages arising from the entrance into milk of the bacteria of decomposition, there is reason to believe that the germs of disease also sometimes find their way into milk. Outbreaks of specific diseases like diphtheria and typhoid fever have been traced to infection of the milk supply, and evidence is accumulating that cases of disease from this source are more numerous than formerly supposed. There is good ground for believing that the indiscriminate use of raw milk is one of the most serious sanitary indiscretions committed by the average city dweller. The practical difficulties in the way of exercising an adequate supervision and control over the milk supply are often over-estimated by city health authorities. A large amount of time and energy is now devoted to the detection of chemical adulteration and of dilution or 'extension' of the milk, but little or nothing is attempted in regard to the vastly more important matter of protecting the general character of the supply. Much good might be accomplished by the systematic official cooperation of the health authorities with the various associations of milk dealers who are in a position to apply effective pressure to slovenly or wilfully careless producers. The milk dealers and producers as a class are rapidly awakening to the importance of scientific method, and will respond readily to any attempt made to bring the results of scientific investigation to bear upon their work. In individual instances that have come to the writer's notice, milk dealers, in their eagerness to do the right thing, are actually committing grave sanitary mistakes, and their customers receive no benefit from the dealers' endeavors, because the dealers themselves are not properly guided. Certainly the municipal authorities in some places are not performing their whole duty in this regard.
The greater general prevalence of infectious diseases among city dwellers as compared with the rural population is a second important respect in which present city conditions are strikingly disadvantageous. The more abundant opportunities for infection that are afforded, indeed made necessary, by the nature of city life and occupation can not be easily avoided, but at least their exact character can be made known
- ↑ W. H. Park, Journal of Hygiene, July, 1901.
