SANITAKY NOTBS. KHAliTOUM 
87 
any water which was convenient. The iilthy mixture, which at times was sold to an 
unsuspecting public, certainly did not deserve the name of milk. Measures were at once 
taken to control this trade. The women were all registered, proper milk-cans were supplied, 
and offenders were severely punished, though only after matters had been carefully explained 
to them, and when there could be no doubt as to their disobedience being wilful and not merely 
the result of ignorance. .\11 this did some good, but it was not sufficient. The women cannot 
always be under observation, and they evade the by-laws. If the Egyptian policeman was of 
any use from a sanitary standpoint, the measures taken might suffice ; but he is, as a 
rule, a monument of stupidity, so far as sanitary affairs are concerned, and often aids and 
abets the offender through the kindliness of his heart and the thickness of his head. The 
milk supply, then, is still of doubtful quality, and the method of employing calabashes as cups 
wherewith to measure it out does not improve it. Hitherto the staff of sanitary inspectors 
has been so small that it has not been possible to go further, but next year it is hoped 
to institute a reform. 
The vendors will be made to bring the milk in properly covered cans to a central station. 
There the milk will be transferred to other cans owned by the Sanitary Service. Each can 
will be provided with a padlocked cover and with a tap for delivery. When filled the can will 
be locked so that milk can only be obtained from the tap. The inhabitants will be notified of 
the change, so that they have only themselves to hlame if they do not see the milk directly 
supplied from the can. In the evening the cans will be returned to the station for cleansing 
purposes, and the women vvill be given the vessels, for milk transport, which in the meantime will 
have been properly cleaned. Whenever desired, samples of the milk will be taken for analysis 
before it is sent out to the consumers. This seems to me the best way of dealing with the 
difficulty. It is simple and should prove effective. I fear it can only be applied to Khartoum, 
at least at first. Later, if found to work well, I hope to introduce it at Khartoum North. It 
is only fair to add that, despite the faulty conditions which have obtained, there does not seem 
to have been much illness produced by the dirty and watered milk. The native baby is 
breast fed, and so, I think, for the most part are the Egyptian, Syrian, Greek and Italian 
infants. It is to these communities this milk is chiefly sold. In the summer of 1907 there 
was a considerable amount of infantile diarrhoea, however, and this may have been due to the 
faulty milk supply. Of course, one has to remember that, owing to the habits of the consumer, 
a good milk may quickly deteriorate after being supplied to them, owing to faulty storage 
and other causes. This, as mentioned in the Eeview Supplement, is specially apt to occur in 
the Tropics. 
Slaughter-house .—A new slaughter-house, built on the same lines as those in Egypt, was 
erected in 1906. So long as it is carefully looked after, and there is a sufficiency of labour and 
of water, no great fault can be found with it. If not properly managed it soon becomes a much 
greater nuisance than the primitive native slaughtering place, which consists of a yard with a 
few poles and trenches into which the blood is run and the offal is cast. This is the kind still 
in use at Khartoum North, and it is remarkable how sweet and clean it can be kept. In 
Khartoum the blood and sweepings pass into a cement tank, and are baled out into a Crowley 
cart, which also removes the offal and manure. The contents are dealt with at the sewage 
trenches, being in part pitted and in part spread out as a feast for the vultures, which make 
most efficient scavengers. 
I believe the provision of lairs at the slaughter-house has tended to improve the quality of 
the meat, and efforts have been made to secure better apparatus for hanging the carcases, while 
the well has been covered, a pump supplied, and the water distributed by gravity from an iron 
and covered tank. 
The inspection of meat is in the hands of the Veterinary Department. 
Proposed 
remedy 
Milk and 
disease 
Slaughter¬ 
house 
