CERTIFICATION AS A MEANS OF IMPROVING THE GENERAL MILK SUPPLY.
[TO TAM EDITOR Or 11111 ..SPRCTATOL".1
SIR,—The majority of producers and distributors of milk realize, even more than does the public, the unsatisfactory condition in which milk reaches the consumer, and would welcome the means of improving the supply. Before an improved supply can exist them must be a genuine demand, and before such demand there must be an understanding of the difference between clean, wholesome milk and the present ordinary supply. Most people now think of milk as a four- pence-per-quart opaque liquid food, and judge its merits or demerits by its colour, which does not indicate its richness, as is fondly assumed, but merely the amount of anatta vegetable dye) that the retailer finds it necessary to intro. duce in order to hold his trade. I believe there is not a single dealer in London who could continue his business were he to discontinue this practice. This false standard must be done away with, and in its place some knowledge of the contents of the present general supply must be engendered, which will cause a demand for milk which is free from tubercle and other pathogenic germs ; also, what is far more important, from manure and other forms of dirt, which, it is not generally known, are a far greater cause of infant mortality than is tubercle.
Some people argue that they have drunk dirty or tubercular milk all their lives and are none the worse. That may be true, but they forget the many who, being dead, cannot use that argument. If there be people who do not object to manure or pathogenic germs in their food, it is at least fair that milk should be sold in grades, so that those who do have such objections may be able to obtain a different product. Before milk can be graded there must exist a standard of excellence, and such a standard can be obtained by certification of milk as is now done in almost every one of the United States. T here the Milk Commission of the State Medical Association issues a certificate (which must be renewed monthly) to dairy- men who comply with their requirements. Briefly, the requirements are that the Commission keeps a careful guard over the conditions of the premises, health of employees, health of cows (the entire herd of a dairyman having his pro- duct " certified " must be free from tuberculosis and his milk bottled on the farm); and, most important of all, the Commission takes a bottle of such milk at the point of distribution,and there, in addition to making a chemical examination for butter-fat, the bacteria contained are counted and must not exceed
10,000 per cubic centimetre. The bacterial standard has been found to be the only really practical means of determining
the amount of dirt in milk, and consequently the care with which it has been handled. Whilst it is not difficult to deliver milk containing less than 10,000 bacteria per cubic centimetre, in a number of bacteriological tests that have ' been made in London during last week, of milk obtained from one of the best dairies, in response to a demand for the cleanest milk that could be offered by that dairy, the lowest count was 880,000, the highest 8,400,000, and the average for six consecutive days 2,993,000 per cubic centimetre.
When "certified milk" can be purchased by those able and willing to pay for the cleanest product that can be obtained, we AO probably have an intermediary grade between the ordinary milk and the "certified" milk, which in America is termed 'inspected milk." This, too, must come from herds free from tuberculosis, but containing a bacterial count perhaps not exceeding 80,000 per cubic centimetre. Whilst certified milk must be bottled at the farm, "inspected' milk could be shipped in churns in order to lower the cost to the consumer. I am acquainted with the owners of upwards of two thousand cows who, for td. per quart above the market price of ordinary milk, are prepared to contract to deliver such a product. One would expect, but would be mistaken, that London hospitals would be willing to pay such a price for such a supply ; but until the Government takes action so to protect the words " certified " and "inspected,' or better words if such can be found, that purchasers may really know the grade of milk they are buying, rather than having to rely, as they do now, on the word of the dairyman for the quality of his product, the public cannot be expected to pay any more attention to such descriptions than they should to such terms as "infants' milk," "invalids' milk," or similar catchwords. When such grading of milk is in force, the general milk supply will be improved through the force of education. The farm hands and their employers will learn that it is a disgusting and unnecessary habit to milk with a wet hand, the manure will be groomed from the cow's flanks and udder before milking, and many such unnecessary means of contamination, not only at the farm, but in transit and in the city dairy, will be done away with.
Legislation can only determine the permissible limits of dirtiness—it can never achieve the results that can be obtained through education. The improvement in the ordinary grade of milk will arise through the knowledge that will be dis- seminated by the producers of certified milk. An intelligent demand for a cleaner supply will be created, and farmers will learn that the present chief causes of contamination at the farm can be avoided at little or no expense to themselves. There will be a demand that milk shall, in many instances, be bottled at the farm, and to this end the railway companies will lower their charges for the transportation of bottled milk, which at present are approximately nine times as much per quart of milk in bottles as per quart in churns. This would be a further source of income to the railway companies, who now have literally almost no traffics in bottled milk owing to their prohibitive charges, whereas railway companies during 1912 transported into the city of New York upwards of eighty-four million bottles.
I am sure it will be agreed that no existing societies should take upon themselves the responsibilities for certifying milk, as, no matter how well such a society might do its work, there would immediately be others who would issue " certifi- cates" whose inspection, &c., would be valueless. Public opinion must help the Government to bring about this good work, for only the Government has the power to ensure that descriptions such as "certified" or "inspected" shall convey to the public the assurance that such descriptions are abso- lutely above suspicion.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Moundsmere Manor, Basingstoke. WrLFRED BUCKLEY'.
[Though we must not be held to commit ourselves to all the statements and proposals contained in our correspondent's letter, we are altogether with him (1) in his desire to awaken public, opinion on the need of a purer milk supply, and (2) in his insistence that the consumer shall be assured that if he buys "certified milk" the description will not be merely a piece of advertising "common form," but will mean that a certain standard of purity has been reached. We shall watch the effort to secure clean milk with no small sympathy.—En. Spectator.]
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