32 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 



another angle. The city can acquire little exact information 

 regarding the quality of its milk supply and can do even less 

 in the matter of correcting abuses until it provides a system 

 of inspection and collection of milk samples. As late as 1890 

 only about a dozen American cities had made specific pro- 

 visions for such inspection and examination. 11 



In their attempts at handling the milk situation the cities 

 have given their attention successively to various aspects of 

 the milk question and for the time being each of these aspects 

 has been considered as essentially the milk problem. While 

 the chronological order in which these subdivisions of the 

 question have been emphasized in different cities has varied, 

 the common sequence has been food value, healthfulness, 

 cleanliness, and keeping quality. 



The necessity of determining existing facts with regard to 

 these problems has quite naturally created the problem of 

 milk inspection and the complicated results of more recent 

 milk inspection have emphasized the need of milk grading as 

 a way of clearly summarizing the situation for the consuming 

 public. 



THE PROBLEM OF FOOD VALUE 



Since milk is uniformly retailed by volume, there is a 

 temptation to increase the volume through the addition of 

 water. Moreover, the ready market for cream offers an addi- 

 tional temptation to partially skim the milk before sale. Many 

 of the early examinations of milk supplies showed that both 

 practices were fairly common. The earliest recognized 

 problem of city milk supplies was safeguarding the composi- 

 tion or food value of the milk. 



Massachusetts passed an act forbidding the watering and 

 skimming of milk in 1856 as did New York City in 1873. r - 

 However, little could be accomplished in the absence of simple 

 and accurate means for detecting these practices. The 

 lactometer was of seme service in this connection but it was 



H. N. Parker, City Milk Supply, p. 371. 

 ibid., p. 370. 



