752 Popular Editions of Station Bulletins of the 



The results of the inspections as given by the quarterly reports 

 of the Board of Health indicated that the sanitary conditions sur- 

 rounding the production of the milk supply had remained practically 

 unchanged, the report for December 31, 1912, showing 10 per ct. of the 

 dairies as " excellent " and 90 per ct. as " good." These reports 

 were gratifying to the public since they indicated the continuance 

 of satisfactory sanitary conditions and they were satisfactory to the 

 producers since they insured the continuance of the prevailing 

 prices for milk. 



But subsequent investigations made by the Station, in following 

 out other lines of work, indicate that conditions in many of the 

 dairies were not accurately shown by the reports. The Bacterio- 

 logical and Dairy Departments of the Station are engaged in a com- 

 parative study of various score cards. In August, 1912, they were 

 being aided in this study by Mr. F. H. Bothell, of the Dairy Division 

 of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, a man of wide experience 

 in the sanitary scoring of dairies. In company with Mr. Bothell, 

 the station bacteriologist, Dr. H. A. Harding, one of his assistants, 

 Mr. Jas. D. Brew, and Mr. Geo. A. Smith, the Station dairy expert, 

 inspected 15 of the dairies supplying this city, in connection with 

 these score card studies. At this time it was evident that, notwith- 

 standing the favorable reports given by the city inspector, the 

 sanitary conditions surrounding the milk production had deteriorated 

 very markedly. 



The conditions were again determined by an inspection of the 

 dairies by Mr. Brew during the last quarter of 1912, and all of the 

 dairies were again visited during January and February of 1913. 

 In each case the facts as they existed were noted at the time of the 

 visit and the reduction of this to a numerical score was supervised 

 by Dr. Harding. Using the same standard of cuts and making the 

 scorings in all particulars as comparable as possible with the scoring 

 made in March, 1911, when the results were 12.8 per ct. " excellent " 

 and 87.2 per ct. " good," the inspections made in January and Feb- 

 ruary, 1913, gave 18 per ct. " good " and 82 per ct. " medium." 



The magnitude of this change in conditions is shown graphically 

 by the diagrams on the title page. 



The nature of these changes in sanitary conditions is extremely 



suggestive. In a number of cases the tuberculin test was not renewed 



within the year and the reacting animals removed; 



How decline the cleaning of the cows was generally omitted and 

 occurred. in some cases their bodies were allowed to become 

 well coated with dried excrement; frequently little 

 or no attention was given to the cooling of the milk ; cobwebs, dust 

 and general litter accumulated in the stables; the barnyards often 

 became choked and muddy from the accumulation of manure. It 

 should be noted that the failure to attend to these details saved 



