No. 4.] MILK SUPPLY AND PUBLIC HEALTH. 61 



one cent per can. My recollection is that they made so much 

 of an impression on the farmers in the Legislature that they 

 submitted to the laying aside of that bill, and nothing ever 

 came of it. Those of you who are familiar with the trans- 

 portation of cans and the condition in which they are sent 

 out from Boston for the farmers to fill, know that in many 

 cases they go out in a terrible condition. That does not 

 fairly express it. The men who buy the milk and retail it, 

 particularly the grocery trade, use these cans as a receptacle 

 for all sorts of waste and filth about the store. Rotten eggs, 

 dead cats and anything they want to dispose of are thrown 

 into these cans, and the cans are sent back to the farmers 

 without cleansing, for their wives to clean. This bill was to 

 compel by law the contractors to send clean cans, and I 

 believe they could do it at so slight an expense that it would 

 not make one bit of difference in the amount they would pay 

 the producers. 



Professor Sedgwick. I am pleased to have that point 

 brought out. I have never been able to see why the contrac- 

 tor should not wash the cans. He says it injures the life of 

 the can. That does not seem reason enough. To show that 

 it is not a great expense, I want to mention the Springfield 

 Association. Any man from Springfield can tell you that this 

 association, acting as their own " middleman," receives milk 

 from a large number of farms, and wash their cans, steam- 

 ing them thoroughly, at a very trifling expense. I have 

 seen the wash-room, which is quite a small room. It has 

 always seemed to me that the Springfield Association has one 

 of the best arrangements for the care and delivery of milk 

 that I have seen anywhere in the State. They had a case of 

 typhoid fever, and I was called upon to investigate it. It 

 proved to be a man who got milk from the association. The 

 association people threw open their books to our inspection, 

 and did everything they could to hunt the thing down. We 

 found it came from a certain place, and that dairy was cut 

 off", and confidence was restored at once in the whole milk sup- 

 ply. I have always stood up for that association, although 

 I know them very slightly. I know that they wash their 

 cans, which shows that when a number of farmers combine 

 they do not find it difficult to wash the cans. Cans that had 

 been washed might, on account of dust, need rinsing in the 



