EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XXXIII. December, 1915. No. 8. 



The recent convention of the International Association of Dairy 

 and Milk Inspectors in Washington, D. C, has directed attention 

 anew to the systematic efforts being made to safeguard on a scientific 

 basis the milk supply of the Nation, and to the remarkable progress 

 achieved in ideals and methods of carrying on this important func- 

 tion. This association, it may be recalled, was organized in 1912 " to 

 develop uniform and efficient inspection of dairy farms, milk estab- 

 lishments, milk, and milk products," but its program has a much wider 

 significance and interest than is attached to technical details of de- 

 tecting violations of law and conducting prosecutions. 



Milk inspection, as was pointed out by a number of speakers at this 

 meeting, has come to be far more than a matter of routine police work. 

 It rests upon a foundation of scientific research in such branches as 

 chemistry, bacteriology, human and veterinary medicine, sanitary 

 science, rural engineering, and economics, as well as of dairying and 

 dairy-farm management. Its aim, also, is not merely regulatory 

 but constructive and educational. This is exemplified in the program 

 of its meetings, the range of subjects including scientific, technical, 

 economic, and educational papers, as well as those dealing with admin- 

 istrative details. Its meetings, therefore, partake of the nature of a 

 national conference of all who are interested in the milk question. 



Thus, at the recent Washington meeting, an entire session was de- 

 voted to a discussion by Drs. Melvin, Mohler, and Schroeder, of the 

 Bureau of Animal Industry, of problems related to tuberculosis, 

 foot-and-mouth disease, and contagious abortion in dairy cattle. Dr. 

 J. W. Kerr, of the United States Public Health Service, took up the 

 control of milk-borne diseases of man, and Ernest Kelly, of the Dairy 

 Division, the need of medical inspection of employees engaged in the 

 production and handling of milk. There was a technical discussion 

 of the significance of bacteriology in milk by L. A. Eogers, also of the 

 Dairy Division, and a, popular address on inspection from the stand- 

 point of the milk und cream producer by Dr. H. W. Wiley, formerly 

 chief of the Bureau of Chemistry. 



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