226 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



which would have to be considered, and it was for the 

 doctors to tell them carefully and in detail many things 

 relating to milk; but on the side of economics she asked the 

 doctors to believe that the farmers had studied that most 

 carefully. It was not for them as farmers to decide what 

 should be the minimum or the maximum that physicians 

 should charge for a consultation that might save the life of 

 a child. Was it wholly for the doctors to decide what it 

 cost to produce that milk which might also, with the doctor's 

 help, save the life of a child ? All she asked was that they 

 might have co-operation that the doctors would allow them 

 as farmers to work under their leadership, because they 

 could trust the sanity, the sureness, the cleverness of that 

 leadership, and also the great human side which had come 

 out over and over again both in the towns and in the 

 cities. 



Dr. W. PERRIN NORRIS (Commonwealth of Australia) 

 said he had not intended taking any part in the discussion, 

 but for the speech of his medical confrere from Darlington, 

 who had .told them a story about unsympathetic Benches 

 and of Benches that were on the side of the adulterators. 

 He thought it might not be out of place if he told them a 

 little experience he had had in this regard. A Pure Food 

 Law was enacted in Victoria in 1905, and among other 

 things power w"as obtained to frame regulations standardiz- 

 ing articles of food. Some were prepared to place this 

 power in the hands of the Board of Public Health, partly a 

 municipal body, but he had advised that this should not be 

 a matter wholly in such a Board's hands, and as a result 

 Parliament framed the law on the basis that the question 

 should be dealt with first of all from the scientific standpoint; 

 secondly, from the standpoint of efficient administration; 

 and thirdly, from the standpoint of the honest manufacturer. 

 After the law was passed the time came to formulate food 

 standards, that for milk among others. The officers of the 

 Health Department were sent into the highways and by- 

 ways to obtain samples from milk vendors, they sampled 

 the milk at railway station depots, where wholesale market 

 milk was delivered. In all, the results of about 20.000 to 

 30,000 samples were available from which to judge what the 

 standard should be. It was found that the lowest fat content 

 was 3*3 per cent., and this in very few samples : the average 

 was nearer 3*8 per cent., and the standard was fixed at 3*5 

 per cent, fat, 12 per cent, total solids. This was in 1906, and 

 the standard still remains at these figures. There has been 

 an outcry in the press each spring, as well as letters from 

 the Retail Milk Producers' Association, pleading that they 



