No, 4.] MILK INSPECTION. 91 



MILK INSPECTION FROM THE PEODDCER'S 

 POINT OF YIEW. 



HARVEY W. WILEY, M.D., WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



Having looked at the problem of milk inspection for a third 

 of a century from the consumer's point of view, and particu- 

 larly from the point of view of the official in charge of the 

 execution of food laws, I am appearing in quite a new guise in 

 considering this subject from the point of view of the pro- 

 ducer. I have now for nearly two years been a producer of 

 milk, on a small scale, for commercial purposes. The size of 

 the production, however, does not affect the question. During 

 this time my attention has been particularly called to the 

 effect of milk inspection upon the producer. I take it for 

 granted that every producer of milk desires to send to market 

 an article which is wholesome, which does not threaten the 

 life or health of children, and which is as clean as can reason- 

 ably be expected. I claim to belong to that class of producers. 

 I think, also, if there be any of another kind of producer still 

 extant, that he may listen with some benefit to what I have to 

 say. I suppose there are producers of milk who send to mar- 

 ket products of diseased animals, containing filth and dirt 

 which might well be excluded. In charity I assume that most 

 of such producers are ignorant of the nature of the problem. 

 There can be very few who deliberately send a product to 

 market knowing that it is practically unfit for consumption, 

 and in addition to this that it may threaten the health and 

 even the life of the children who consume it. 



Beginning at the foundation, in the selection of a herd I 

 make it an invariable rule not to place in my herd any dis- 

 eased animal, in so far as ordinary precautions can exclude 

 such, nor any animal that would react to the tuberculin test. 

 I am aware that no human test of this nature can be abso- 



