48 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



considering the recommendation to the boards of health of 

 Massachusetts of their adoption of a set of rules looking to- 

 wards the sanitary improvement of the public milk supplies 

 of the cities under their charge. I believe that nothing rash 

 will "be done, but I sincerely hope that the way will be pointed 

 out for a great reform in our milk supplies, similar to that 

 which, under the able and wise guidance of our State Board 

 of Health, has been effected in the public water supplies of 

 the State. Happy shall we be if Massachusetts will here 

 once more, as so often before, set an honorable example for 

 the whole nation to follow. 



Thorough Understanding or the Problem the First 

 Condition of its Solution. 



The milk supply problem, from the sanitary stand-point, 

 is by no means simple. Three great factors, at least, are 

 involved in it, and each has special duties to perform if the 

 problem is to be solved in the best way. These are the pro- 

 ducers, the middlemen and the consumers. But, in order to 

 understand the whole situation, let us examine it in detail and 

 in its evolution or origin. 



Normal Milk. — The primitive, original and fundamental 

 form of milk supply is that in which the mammal — cow, 

 camel, elephant, goat, sheep or man — suckles its young. 

 In this case the milk supplied by the parent passes almost 

 instantaneously from the milk gland into the stomach of the 

 young, — without lapse of time ; without exposure to air or 

 vessels ; without human handling, manipulation or falsifica- 

 tion, — precisely as nature has prepared it. The only possi- 

 bility of fault to be found with it from the sanitary stand-point 

 is the possibility of damage from the parent, in case that 

 parent is unhealthy or ill fed. If the parent is healthy and 

 well fed such milk deserves the name of normal milk. 



Normal cow's milk, then, may be defined as milk as it 

 flows from the udder of a healthy and well-cared-for cow. 



Domestic or Country MiTk. — Next in complexity comes 

 the private or domestic supply, in which a family obtains its 

 milk from its own cow or c'ows. This is the system which 

 prevails on ordinary farms and in small villages, and survives 

 sometimes as a coveted luxury of the wealthy even in large 



