THE SANITARY FACTORS 65 



other branches of sanitary endeavor, the inertia of tra- 

 ditional ideas and routine has been great. To-day there 

 may be seen the most advanced and promising ideas in 

 operation side by side with the archaic the latter still 

 largely prevailing. 



To find the beginnings of milk supply control hi 

 the United States in anything resembling the modern 

 sense, we must go back some twenty-five or thirty 

 years. The following passage from a paper by Mr. 

 H. W. Parker epitomizes those beginnings: 



Most people think that the milk question is new in America, 

 that it appeared not over twenty years ago, but really it 

 began to make itself felt in the big cities at an earlier period. 

 Thus, in 1859 the office of milk inspector was established in 

 Boston; in 1870 the Board of Health of Providence investi- 

 gated the milk supply of that city; and in 1871 the board 

 of health of Washington looked into that of the Federal city. 

 But in a sense the public is right, for the regular collection 

 and analysis of milk samples did not become common in 

 American cities until the period from 1885 to 1890.* It 

 seems probable that about this time the family cow disap- 

 peared and dairymen found it necessary to locate so far 

 from their trade that they found it difficult to deliver milk 

 in good condition and had lost personal contact with their 

 customers. 1 



The efforts at this time were very largely directed 

 against watering, skimming, and other forms of adul- 

 teration or sophistication, which were very common at 

 the time. This work was certainly necessary, and still 



* Sedgwick and Batchelder's work, mentioned below, indicates, how- 

 ever, that the beginnings of bacteriological control were somewhat 

 later. J. S. M. 



