CHAPTER XIII 



THE CONTROL OF THE MILK SUPPLY: (l) BY THE STATE 



General Note. Milk Legislation in England and Wales. Model Milk Clauses. 

 The Local Authority and the Milk Supply. Milk Legislation in Scotland : 

 In Ireland : On the Continent of Europe : In the United States of America : 

 In the British Colonies. 



We propose in this section to consider some of the main facts and 

 principles having relation to the control of the milk supply. These 

 facts arise very largely out of that which has gone before. The 

 practical bearing of the present knowledge of the bacteriology of 

 milk is a larger measure of control and regulation of the milk supply. 

 More particularly is this necessary, when it is considered in relation 

 to the growth of the towns and the resultant complexity of the 

 management of the trade. When a family keeps its own cows and 

 does its own milking and nothing more, the opportunities for 

 pollution are small. But when, as now obtains, milk is transported 

 long distances and is collected, not from one farm and for one 

 family, but from hundreds of farms and for thousands of families, 

 then the complexity of operations at once becomes obvious and the 

 opportunities of pollution are manifold. It is idle to say that the 

 control which met the necessities of our forefathers will also meet 

 ours. The condition of things has during the last half century been 

 revolutionised. The population has migrated from the country into 

 the towns, and it has thus come about that what now constitutes 

 the Milk Trade is comparatively a modern growth, and one which 

 calls for totally new measures of control. 



It is not, however, the growth of the milk trade alone which 

 necessitates measures of control. There has also been during the 

 last thirty years an enormous growth in our knowledge of milk and 

 its relation to disease. Alongside the acquisition of the new facts 

 about bacteria and milk, there has been an attempt to reduce its 

 teaching to practical application, with the result that legislation and 



