NEW YORK MILK COMMITTEE 49 



problem in America to-day is one of the most tangled and one 

 of the toughest and one of the most difficult to solve of any 

 which confronts the public. 



But while we wait more or less patiently for the solution 

 which we believe must eventually come, there is one and only 

 one complete safeguard against any infections which may 

 hide themselves behind the veil of whiteness, and hence of in- 

 nocence, worn by milk. That remedy is extremely simple, be- 

 ing the same which we apply to suspected water or oysters or 

 meats, namely, ordinary cooking. Cooked milk may not al- 

 ways be palatable or in all cases digestible but it is always safe 

 so far as infectious disease is concerned; while raw milk may 

 be most unsafe. Whether cooking shall take the form of 

 brief scalding or more prolonged boiling or that par-boiling, 

 which we have come to know as pasteurizing, makes, so far 

 as safety goes, but little difference. We must of course have 

 inspection, all we can get of it, beginning with the examina- 

 tion of the cow and extending into the consumer's kitchen and 

 refrigerator; but we must not delude ourselves by the belief 

 that any system of inspection, however intelligent or com- 

 plete, can ever give us perfect protection against disease con- 

 veyed by milk, or can ever equal, as a sanitary safeguard, 

 simple cooking. 



The milk situation in America at present is more acute 

 than ever before and is everywhere hedged about by difficul- 

 ties which cannot be removed either to-day or to-morrow. 

 But they can be diagnosed and studied in conferences like this 

 and by and by they may be overcome. 



THE CHAIRMAN: Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, if there is any 

 one man in the United States who has been more active than any 

 other as a public health official, in stirring up the community in 

 which he lives and in standing for good work along health lines, 

 that man is Dr. Evans, Commissioner of Health of the City of 

 Chicago, who needs no introduction to this or any other audi- 

 ence in America. 



Da. EVANS spoke as follows: 



THE RELATION OF THE PURITY OF MILK 

 PRODUCTS TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH 



MR. CHAIRMAN, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : As I look 

 over this program, and also as I look out over this audience, 



