WHY THERE IS A MILK PROBLEM 3 



growth of germ life; epidemiology, which has searched 

 out countless instances in which it was the vehicle of 

 disease} and vital statistics, which, in conjunction with 

 clinical observation, has indicated the part played by 

 bad milk in the preventable disease and mortality of 

 infancy. The subject of safe, wholesome milk is there- 

 fore directly related to the two principal fields of mod- 

 ern public hygiene, prevention of communicable dis- 

 ease and conservation of child life. 



The milk problem, as we shall find hi the course of 

 these pages, is characterized by complication and con- 

 fusion. Its complications are due partly to the pe- 

 culiar sanitary and economic conditions of the milk 

 industry, and partly to the difficulties of harmonizing 

 the several human interests involved. Milk is pro- 

 duced in quantities enormous in the aggregate, comes 

 from animals liable to disease, and is handled by per- 

 sons liable to diseases transferable by milk. It is, for 

 the most part, under the care (or lack of it) of men 

 whose education and experience know not the delicate 

 science of bacteriology. It reaches the city consumer 

 by a journey which is interrupted at frequent intervals 

 for transference or handling, and at each stage there are 

 chances of contamination and improper treatment. 

 Finally, the consumer has no direct knowledge of its 

 source, its history, and its sanitary quality when it 

 reaches him. Even in the home, its final destination, 

 it may, and frequently does, suffer impairment. Sani- 

 tary measures must be carefully devised and correlated, 

 and even with an adequate force of officials frequently 

 not available regulations are not easy to enforce. 

 When strictly enforced they may arouse the antagonism 



