APPENDIX E 237 



We became convinced, also, that there was an economic side to 

 the milk question and that it vies with the health aspect in impor- 

 tance, for, as runs the famous receipt for rabbit pie " first catch 

 your hare" so someone must first produce the milk, and if it is 

 not made a profitable undertaking for someone, who will produce 

 it and then where does the health question enter in? 



Our final conclusion was that the proper way to inspect milk was 

 by the laboratory and if anything went wrong an inspection of the 

 dairy became necessary, and that to rule indiscriminately that 

 each dairy must be equipped thusly and score a certain percentage 

 was unnecessary.* 



A recent report of the Brockton Health Department 

 states: 



As we have reiterated from year to year, and as further demon- 

 strated by our work in 1914, the high scoring dairy does not neces- 

 sarily produce the cleanest and safest milk. 



Dairymen supplying Brockton have succeeded in produc- 

 ing unusually low-bacteria-count milk in stables of inex- 

 pensive construction (see Plate 3, p. 83) and the names of 

 the most meritorious are published in the annual reports of 

 the Health Department. The following statement, in answer 

 to a short list of questions, is furnished by Mr. Boiling: 



1. Sanitary milk inspection for Brockton began in 1906; that 

 year the local board made rules and regulations to supervise the 

 production, care, and sale of milk. Among the regulations was one 

 limiting the number of bacteria in milk intended for sale to 500,000 

 per c.c. Collection of samples from wagons and stores to deter- 

 mine their relation to the bacterial standard began immediately 

 upon adopting the rule in 1906. The first year about 600 samples 

 were examined by the plate method of counting and in the last ten 

 years 12,300 have been so examined. Persistent violations of this 

 rule have been prosecuted, about a dozen altogether in the ten 

 years. Only such cases have been prosecuted, however, as proved 



* "The development of a municipal laboratory," American Journal 

 of Public Health, June, 1912. 



