164 MILK AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH CHAP. 



Goler, Health Officer of Rochester, U.S.A., who has done 

 valuable work in improving the milk supply of Rochester, 

 a city of about 185,000 inhabitants, remarks: 1 



The Rochester milk work had its beginning in the summer of 

 1897, when during July and August we began to establish summer 

 milk stations, where milk put up in nursing bottles could be bought 

 at a nominal price. . . . For the whole period of years from 1888 to 

 1896 there were 6629 deaths in children under five years of age. 

 For a similar nine-year period, from 1897 to 1905, there were 4403 

 deaths in children under five years of age, a diminution of over 

 30 per cent. These deaths represent all the deaths from all causes, 

 and not merely those from intestinal diseases alone. 



Taking the deaths in July and August, he finds 



Total deaths under five years, July and August, first period, 

 nine years without municipal milk stations = 2005. 



Total deaths under five years, July and August, second period, 

 nine years with municipal milk stations = 1000. 



Goler works upon the belief 



. . . that most babies become sick because they are infected by the 

 bacteria and poisons of stable manure contained in dirty milk, and 

 that to keep children well it is necessary to protect them from the 

 dirt in milk just as much as we would protect them from diphtheria 

 or scarlet fever infections. 



Goler, in another paper, 2 gives the interesting Chart repro- 

 duced on the next page. It does not, of course, prove any re- 

 lationship between the death-rate and the bacterial count, but 

 the close association is interesting, and at least suggests that 

 they may be related rather than both due to a common cause. 



1 Maryland Medical Journal, June 1906. 



2 Archives of Pediatrics, September 1906. 



[CHART 



