432 CITY MILK SUPPLY 



stores, 52.4 per cent, sold only bottled milk, while the rest, or 47.6 per 

 cent., sold dipped milk. In 17 cities reporting, the dipped milk sold over 

 the counter per day amounted to 231,896 gal., or 13,641 gal. per day in 

 each city permitting the practice. 



There are numerous objections to the sale of dipped milk. It is apt 

 to be stale because drivers commonly deliver that milk which has been 

 longest on the wagon to the stores and the fresh milk to the family trade. 

 Even if the intention of the dealer is honest the quality of the milk served 

 to different customers will vary considerably; some will get rich milk 

 from the top of the can and others will get skim-milk from the bottom. 

 A more weighty objection to the sale of dipped milk is found in the records 

 of several cities which show that the samples of dipped mjlk from stores 

 are much more .commonly adulterated in other ways than by skimming 

 than are the samples from wagons. Besides being liable to sophistica- 

 tion dipped milk is exposed to contamination with all sorts of dirt. Often 

 facilities for cleaning the milk utensils are lacking and so the dipper and 

 measure get into shocking condition; sometimes a cheesy layer of casein 

 accumulates at the edges of the milk tank and sediment collects on the 

 bottom. Most serious of all is it, that the milk is repeatedly exposed to 

 human contamination and therefore is likely to become infected with 

 the germs of human disease. The proprietors of the stores are often 

 ignorant and have no conception of the way milk should be handled and 

 so it is insufficiently iced or iced not at all. The result is the bacterial 

 content of dipped milk is likely to be very high. Thus in Boston in 

 1908, only 27.85 per cent, of the wagon samples contained more than 

 500,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter, whereas 56.59 per cent, of samples 

 of dipped milk ran over this figure. 



Some cities absolutely prohibit the sale of dipped milk but not all are 

 able to do so. Its sale has to be tolerated because the very poor cannot 

 purchase bottled milk and find the dipped milk a convenience. These 

 people buy a few cents worth of milk at a time, take it home and use it 

 at once. Even if they could afford to buy milk by the bottle, they have 

 no way to keep it cool so that most of it would spoil before being used. 

 In some places this difficulty is met by selling milk to stores in K-pt- 

 bottles. Undoubtedly one of the reasons that both milk dealers and 

 storekeepers are loth to discard the sale of dipped milk is that serious loss 

 is suffered from the non-return of bottles. Where this can be controlled 

 by requiring a deposit for the bottle much of the opposition to the dis- 

 continuance of the sale of dipped milk disappears. Generally the effort 

 of the department should be to gradually eliminate the sale of dipped milk 

 and meanwhile to control the sale by scoring the stores on the score card 

 devised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and by frequent inspections. 



When dealers substitute the sale of milk in bottles for that of dipped 

 milk they soon are pleased with the change, for the bottles are easy to 



