NEW YORK MILK COMMITTEE 51 



its spoiling. It is dirty milk, which is old and which has been 

 kept warm, and which, by reason of these experiences, is 

 harmful, that constitutes the most important grouping of the 

 harmful effects of milk. We hear much of the harm that is 

 done by tuberculosis in cows, and much of the harm that is 

 done by milk as a conveyor of typhoid and other diseases that 

 are contagious, but, in my judgment, bad milk is, far and 

 away, more important, from the standpoint of the harm that it 

 does, through being dirty or through having been unduly 

 warmed, or being unduly old, and having, by reason of these 

 experiences, spoiled. This is the great, important, and over- 

 shadowing way in which milk is harmful to humankind. 



Next in importance, in my judgment, comes the spreading 

 of typhoid fever through milk. When a community has 

 reached a typhoid rate of about twelve, as my community has 

 now, and has maintained, for several years past, it is probable, 

 in my judgment, that the major part of that typhoid fever is 

 being spread through milk. 



Tuberculosis, in this category of diseases that are caused 

 by harmful milk, comes third. 



Fourth would come scarlet fever. The epidemics of scarlet 

 fever that are milk-borne are striking in their characteristics, 

 but they are comparatively infrequent as compared with the 

 manifestations or the spreading of typhoid fever through 

 milk. 



Diphtheria is of less consequence than typhoid fever, and 

 there are other things caused by milk that are of less conse- 

 quence still. 



Those of us who are engaged in the control of the milk 

 supplies of large cities often grow impatient at the point of 

 view and the decisions of those who are arriving at decisions 

 as the result of experiences that are comparatively limited, 

 and as the result of experiences which have not qualified them 

 for judicial determination as to questions that we are settling. 



Communities, from the standpoint of milk control, fall into 

 three groups. First is the group in which is found cities 

 where the milk in the main is produced and consumed on the 

 same premises. The methods of controlling the milk supply 

 there, inasmuch as they exist where that milk is consumed, 

 without transportation, without the intervention of other 



