No. 6. DEPARTMENT 01-' AGRICULTURE. 485 



If every town and rural district produced its own milk, it would 

 be a CO nipai'a lively simple problem lo organize and carry out a fairly 

 efficient system of inspection of milch cows; but as the law at pres- 

 ent stands, the majority of the population cannot obtain this safe- 

 guard. \Mth the exception of Glasgow, Manchester, and a few other 

 places, a local authority has no power to inspect cows outside its 

 own district, atid the helpless position in which this state of the law 

 leaves the inhabitants of London and other large towns is obvious. 

 If cows of which the milk is sold for human food had everywhere to 

 be submitted to periodic inspection, such inspection would naturally 

 be undertaken by the various local authorities, each of which would 

 supervise the cows and cowsheds in its own district; but the com- 

 pulsory inspection of all the milch cows in the country would be a 

 very large undertaking, and perhaps it would be premature to press 

 for it. In the meantime, a good case can be made out for making 

 general the special powers relating to inspection of cows in outside 

 districts which a few fortunate cities have acquired by special acts 

 of Parliament. This also was one of the directions in which the 

 members of the Second Royal Commission on Tuberculosis consid- 

 ered immediate action to be necessary. 



There remain for consideration some other safeguards which would 

 doubtless be less effective than those just discussed, but which, un- 

 like these, would not be difficult to enforce, viz: — (1) Compulsory 

 notification of udder disease and of any symptoms of tuberculosis 

 in milch cows, with, of course, the power to indict a considerable 

 fine for not reporting; and (2) the interdiction of the sale of milk 

 from any cow suffering from tuberculous disease of the udder, or ex- 

 hibiting clinical signs of tuberculosis. Against the demand for the 

 amendment of the existing law to the extent of granting the public 

 these very reasonable safeguards against infection through milk, it 

 cannot be urged that they would be very expensive, or that they 

 would press harshly on private interests. The present state of the 

 law, or rather the almost entire absence of any law, dealing with 

 tuberculous udder disease in covvS, is a scandal and a reproach to 

 civilization. It scarcely sounds credible, but it is a fact, that the 

 owner of a cow in the most advanced state of tuberculosis, and ex- 

 hibiting the most manifest signs of udder disease, may sell that 

 cow's milk for human food as long as the sale has not been specially 

 interdicted on the certificate of a veterinary surgeon, and no penalty 

 attaches to this crime of deliberately or carelessly placing on the 

 market a food material charged with the germs of a dangerous dis- 

 ease. 



In the interests of public health, the sale of milk from tuberculous 

 udders, and from cows that are obviously tuberculous in any part 

 of the body, must be stopped, and it must be declared illegal to keep 



