446 CITY MILK SUPPLY 



normal as possible is marketed. When the sources of milk supply are 

 near at hand and adequate refrigeration is available, the counts that 

 represent sanitary production and commendable handling in transit 

 will be lower than when the sources of supply are hundreds of miles away 

 or when dairymen have to contend with lack of natural ice, lack of cold 

 water and high air temperatures. It might be that part of the milk 

 supply of a city was produced under favorable conditions on farms in the 

 adjacent country and part on equally good farms far away so that ques- 

 tion would arise whether any bacterial standard that might be set would 

 not be unjust for the reason that the home dairies could easily attain it, 

 whereas it would be both difficult and expensive for the foreign dairies to 

 do so. As far as the writer is aware such a condition is unusual because 

 home dairies usually hold the market till the high price of farm land, etc., 

 makes dairying unprofitable. However, should there actually be cases 

 like this suppositious one, it should not be difficult to establish a standard 

 that will expose neither set of dairymen to unfair competition. The 

 outsider invades the local market, as a rule, because he is in a region of 

 cheap production. It is only fair that he be held to local standards even 

 if it is slightly more expensive for him to meet them than for the native 

 to do so. 



It is asserted that since milk is consumed long before its bacterial 

 count is known, bacteriological standards condemn the dairy and not 

 the milk and that they therefore fail of their object. If it be admitted 

 that the intent of bacteriological examinations is to keep specific batches 

 of suspected milk from being consumed by the public, they certainly do 

 fail, but if it is considered that their object is to prevent the habitual 

 consumption of milk of high bacterial content, they may be credited with 

 considerable success on the testimony of the dealers in such milk who, as 

 a rule, are the ones who protest most vehemently against the publication 

 of bacterial counts. 



As to the contention that bacteriological examinations leave much to 

 be desired, in that they fail to distinguish between animal contamina- 

 tion which very rarely is the source of the acute infections in man, and 

 human contamination which often causes them, it must be admitted 

 there is much truth. Still, the importance of this defect is considerably 

 lessened by the fact that bovine tuberculosis may be transmitted to milk 

 in the dung or directly from the udder and that septic sore throat though 

 primarily of human origin in most of the widespread epidemics of the 

 disease has been traced to udder infection and that certain animal dis- 

 eases that afflict man less commonly than these are conveyed in animal 

 secretions and excretions. 



Some disapprove of bacterial standards because of the difficulty of 

 enforcing them. Certainly any who contemplate establishing standards 

 will do well to consider this point. In. cases brought to jury trial it is 



