TESTIMONY OF CHARLES F. CHANDLER. 81 



on account of the varying proportions of the dissolved constituents. 

 To obtain comparable results, it would therefore be necessary to 

 work always at the same temperature. Moreover, the quantity of 

 milk which becomes attached to the unimmersed part of the instru- 

 ment may give rise to an error equivalent to 5 per cent, of water.'' 



Q. When was the latest edition of Dr. Wanklyn's book published ? 

 A. I was not sure whether mine was the latest edition ; I cannot 

 answer that question. 



Q. I have one here for 1874 ; is that the latest ? A. I think that 

 is the latest, there may be one later. 



Q. I read from the head of chapter 2, in Wanklyn's book, pub- 

 lished 1874 : " The lactometer, or lacto-densimeter, as it has been 

 called to distinguish it from another similar instrument, the creamo- 

 meter, was at one time a great favorite. In France a few years ago, 

 if not indeed now, the police would take action at once 011 reading 

 that instrument, and turn milk out into the gutter if it were con- 

 demned. And in London^ the lactometer is exposed for sale in shop 

 windows, and both the public and milk dealers trust to it. Even in 

 some recent manuals intended for the guidance of medical officers 

 of health, the use of the lactometer is recommended. In one of 

 them in particular Dr. Edward Smith's which claims a pseudo 

 government sanction, the lactometer is very prominently put for- 

 ward, and recommended as being for milk what the hydrometer is 

 for alcoholic fluids. But, although it is so very popular, and 

 although it has been so implicitly trusted, the lactometer is the 

 most untrustworthy instrument. There hardly ever was an instru- 

 ment which has so utterly failed as the lactometer. It confounds 

 together milk which is exceptionally rich with milk which has been 

 largely watered, and many a poor French peasant, bringing the best 

 and unadulterated produce of his dairy into a French town, has 

 been ruthlessly stopped by the police, who have dipped their lacto- 

 meter into the milk, and forthwith sent it down the gutter, as if it 

 had been milk and water. Very curious things, too, are done in 

 this country by reason of trust in the lactometer. There is a prison 

 not far from London, and the prison authorities are especially par- 

 ticular about their supply of milk ; they allow no milk to enter the 

 prison unless it comes up to the end mark on a certain lactometer. 

 The end mark is pitched very high, and the milk of the purveyor 



