212 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



hand he would have spoken in a more comprehensive way 

 than he felt able to do at that moment. The question of 

 pure milk was very near to his heart. It had been very 

 near his heart for more than twenty-five years. He had 

 been a physician for thirty years. Five years after he began 

 his medical work he became convinced that the question of 

 pure milk was a vital one, as it concerned the life of their 

 infant population. He might commence by saying that in 

 the United- States there was a very happy relation that 

 existed between the medical profession, the sanitary authori- 

 ties, the Federal authorities, and the municipal govern- 

 ments; they also had similar co-operation between philan- 

 thropists and those government authorities. That was 

 evidenced by the representatives who had come over to 

 attend that Conference, and by the fact that the question 

 which had its inception in the minds of medical men was 

 reported upon that day by a Federal officer, Assistant 

 Surgeon-General Kerr of the United States. Five years 

 after he (Dr. Coit) began his medical crusade for clean milk, 

 which was designed especially for clinical purposes, and was 

 still so limited in its effects, the Federal Government began 

 to take an interest in the question, and authorized by an Act 

 of Congress the health officer of the City of Washington 

 to make ordinances that would control the supply of milk 

 From that point on a great interest had been aroused in the 

 question of safe milk, and from that point there was history 

 which was a quarter of a century old, and which he had no 

 doubt was familiar to most of those present. Judging from 

 the reception accorded him the previous day in the medical 

 section of the Conference, he had been obliged to conclude 

 that the rank and file of the medical profession on this side 

 of the world were not yet prepared to say that they wanted 

 and must have safe milk, or what they were satisfied to call 

 in the United States clean milk or sound milk. There was 

 a difference between safe milk and sound milk, and a vast 

 difference between clean milk and sound milk. Milk might 

 be cleaned by the effects of heat; "they could boil milk and 

 make it clean from a medical point of view, but there was 

 no such thing as milk in its initial condition without the 

 contaminations from the stable. There was no milk that 

 was not contaminated with manure, and a great deal of it 

 was contaminated with bovine bacillus. He was of opinion 

 that to be satisfied with the effects of heat in making milk 

 suitable for the use of the population and for the purposes 

 for which doctors required it was merely to hide and make 

 inefficient the efforts which they were trying to stimulate in 

 connection with the initial cleanliness of milk at the sources 



