16 THE MARKETING OF WHOLE MILK 



Section 5. Health Regulations Affecting the Marketing of 



Milk 



At the present time we are so accustomed to public reg- 

 ulation of the milk business that such regulation is seldom 

 contested in the courts. "Our municipal corporations/' 

 says Dillon, "are usually invested with express powers to 

 preserve the health and safety of the inhabitants. This 

 is indeed one of the chief purposes of local government, 

 and reasonable by-laws in relation thereto have always 

 been sustained in England as within the incidental author- 

 ity of corporations to ordain. In determining the validity 

 of ordinances adopted to promote the health and comfort 

 of the inhabitants, it may be taken as firmly established 

 that the State possesses, and therefore municipal corpora- 

 tions under legislative sanction may exercise, the power 

 to prescribe such regulations as may be reasonably neces- 

 sary and appropriate for protection of public health and 

 comfort, and that no person has an absolute right to be at 

 all times and in all circumstances wholly free from re- 

 straint. " 1 



Probably among the earliest recorded instances of milk 

 regulation is that of the Senate of Vienna in 1599, which 

 forbade the sale of milk, butter, and cheese for a time on 

 account of an epidemic which was believed to have origi- 

 nated from dairy products. 2 A milk ordinance passed in 

 Paris in 1743 regulating the feeding of cows and an ordi- 

 nance passed in Hamburg in 1818 are other instances of 

 early milk regulation. 3 The first law providing for dairy 

 regulation in this country was passed in Massachusetts 



1 Dillon, Municipal Corporations, Vol. 2, p. 1022. 



2 Milk Reporter, Oct., 1919, p. 15, quoting Paul G. Heineman in Milk. 

 Ibid. 



