MILK SUPPLY: DISCUSSION 209 



highest importance, and if the opportunity is taken 

 of placing this knowledge before the boys during 

 their last year at school I believe it would have an 

 enormous effect within the next few years on the 

 whole subject of agricultural hygiene. 



DISCUSSION. 



Dr. HOPE (Liverpool) said he would like to add one 

 word in reference to the valuable observations which had 

 fallen from Dr. Biggs. It was evident that the conditions 

 in America were very different from those which prevailed 

 in this country for instance, here we should never have 

 milk thirty-six hours in transit. That was one illustration 

 of the difference that existed in the large American centres 

 and the large cities in England. The proposal which had 

 been given effect to in American centres of having three 

 grades of milk was a very useful one, and might, he 

 thought, be adopted in many instances in our own country, 

 but one must bear this in mind that although they might 

 give very careful attention to the three grades which Dr. 

 Biggs had described, they could have no guarantee that 

 after distribution the precautions which he had described 

 would be given effect to, and that the third grade of unsteri- 

 lized milk would be used only for cooking. It might be 

 employed in exactly the same way as the best grade was 

 employed for the feeding of infants. With regard to 

 sterilization, while he was sure they all appreciated its value, 

 they must bear this in mind, that it might lead them into 

 another danger, that they might rely upon sterilization 

 rather than upon purity of source. Once they got into that 

 mistake any one city might protect itself, but the smaller 

 towns and the small centres of population would not be able 

 to, so that the measures which they might employ for their 

 own protection would be a source of danger to other por- 

 tions of the community which were less satisfactorily cir- 

 cumstanced than the big towns. They must insist upon 

 milk being pure at its source as they did with water. They 

 filtered their water, and did everything that was possible to 

 ensure its purity when delivered, but they most religiously 

 attended to purity at its source. No one would be satisfied 

 to have diluted sewage brought into water mains, because 

 one knew there was a good system of filtration one would 

 rightly demand that the water, even although filtered, should 

 come from a source of undoubted purity. 



Surgeon-General Sir CHARLES P. LUKIS (India) said it was 

 no easy task to deal with the subject of the administrative 



