DR. W. G. SAVAGE'S PAPER 187 



THE ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL OF 

 THE MILK SUPPLY. 



BY WILLIAM G. SAVAGE, M.D.LOND. 



County Medical Officer of Health, Somerset. 



IT will, I think, be accepted that the milk supply 

 requires special control. Milk is a fluid which is 

 an admirable nutritive material for bacteria, so that 

 much of the bacterial contamination it receives is 

 multiplied many fold ; it is a fluid which is obtained 

 under sources and conditions which render bacterial 

 contamination easy, and it is obtained from animals 

 which may themselves be diseased and transmit by 

 way of the milk their disease-producing organisms. 

 Lastly, the arrangements of urban life in this country 

 necessitate that this germ-sustaining fluid shall be 

 transmitted through many hands and be usually some 

 time in its passage from cow to consumer. 



Special control of the milk supply is, therefore, 

 urgently required, and the need has been admitted 

 by the considerable enactments which are concerned 

 with its collection, transmission, and sale. 



Speaking generally, we have to recognize four 

 separate ways in which milk may be responsible for 

 human disease and ill-health : 



(1) Chemical impoverization. 



(2) As a vehicle for the spread of tuberculosis. 



(3) As a vehicle for the transmission of the acute 

 infectious diseases. 



(4) As a vehicle for general bacterial '^ con- 

 tamination. 



As regards (i) this is essentially a question for 

 control at the consumers end, and I do not pro- 

 pose to discuss it here, apart from saying that the 

 present powers are largely adequate if only they were 

 properly enforced. Tuberculosis is dealt with by 

 Professor Beattie. The following remarks, therefore, 



