28: 



NATURE 



[November 7, igi: 



2. Assuming that a danger of tuberculous 

 infection from milk exists, how can it be pre- 

 vented? Pasteurisation has had a great deal said 

 in its favour, and ellicient pasteurisation does 

 destroy the tubercle bacillus. But pasteurisation, 

 as commonly carried out, is uncertain in its action, 

 and there are various other objections to this 

 process. These, however, will be dealt with m 

 another article. 



" Certified " milk is another solution that has 

 been suggested. This means that the milk is 

 produced under stringent conditions as to cleanli- 

 ness of the animals, milkers, cowhouses, milking, 

 &c., the herds are tuberculin-tested, and the milk 

 is cooled, bottled, and packed in ice for transit. 

 .\ good deal has been said about the growth of 

 the certified-milk-depot movement in America, 

 but it is not perhaps realised that this has been 

 forced upon her populace by the deplorable con- 

 dition of the general milk supply there. More- 

 over, certified milk, unless subsidised by public 

 funds or private benevolence, can do nothing to 

 help those to whom a pure milk supply is of the 

 greatest importance, viz., the poor; lor it is 

 admitted that the cost of certified milk must be 

 from Sd. to lod. per quart — only a few of even the 

 well-to-do will pay such a price ! When, a year 

 ago, the price of milk was, in stress of circum- 

 stances, raised from 4^. to 5^. per quart, what an 

 outcry there was ; and every practical dairyman 

 knows that the consumption of milk fell off, and, 

 what is more, has not risen again on the recent 

 decline in price to the former level. Further, if a 

 certified milk trade became general, enormous 

 numbers of cases of bottles would have to be 

 handled by the railway companies, and greatly 

 increased truck capacity would be necessary to 

 deal with them. These and other practical points 

 are not always realised by the armchair reformer. 



3. The great question at issue is not so much 

 whether a very carefully dairied milk, with a low 

 bacterial content, distributed in bottles under ideal 

 conditions, would, or would not, be an advantage 

 to the community as a whole, but rather whether 

 the existing milk supply in general is the cause 

 of such damage to the public health as is frequently 

 so confidently asserted. Save, perhaps, as regards 

 tuberculous infection, which, from what has been 

 stated above, cannot be regarded as a serious 

 menace, the general milk supply is better now 

 than it has ever been, and it is steadily improving. 

 Two factors, which are in the region of practical 

 politics, would undoubtedly improve matters 

 without revolution and unnecessary expense. 

 These are («) cooperation between the farmers 

 in a district and the treatment of their milk 

 (cooling, &c.) at a central depot from which it 

 would be distributed either to the towns around, 

 or to the railway for forwarding to a distance by 

 regular, fast, and properly equipped milk trains, 

 all farms being under proper official inspection; 

 (/)) the elimination of the street dealer or hawker 

 by the abolition of all station trade, and the absorp- 

 tion of the smaller dealers into a few large com- 

 panies, so that there is but one middleman 

 between the farmer and the consumer. 



NO. 2245, VOL. 90] 



It will not be possible to speak definitely of the 

 value of "synthesised milk," a preparation of 

 soya beans, recently placed on the market, until 

 its nutritional value has been ascertained. 



R. T. Hewlett. 



JUBILEE OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL 



INSTITUTE OF CANTERBURY, 



NEW ZEALAND. 



THE Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, New- 

 Zealand, celebrated its jubilee on August 30 

 by holding a conversazione in the Art Gallery, in 

 Christchurch. The institute was established on 

 .\ugust 30, 1862, twelve years after the foundation 

 of the Canterbury Settlement. Sir Julius Von 

 Haast, who had only recently arrived in the 

 colony, was the principal leader of the movement 

 to form the institute, and he devoted to it the 

 remarkable energy and enthusiasm with which 

 he founded Canterbury Museum and made it the 

 best institution of the kind in New Zealand. He 

 was elected the first president of the institute, 

 and was one of its most prominent officers until 

 his death, many years afterwards. 



The institute made an excellent start on its 

 career. It was ambitious, and it is characteristic 

 of the spirit which animated the colonists of those 

 days that it made up its mind at once to do some- 

 thing quite practical. It announced that it wished 

 to take part in the development of the resources 

 of the province, and to help the settlers by dis- 

 seminating amongst them useful knowledge. 

 It held its first business meeting, which 

 was numerously attended, in November, 1862, 

 and it listened to the reading of papers on 

 the growth of thistles, the manufacture of the 

 native flax [Phormium tenax), and other practical 

 subjects. 



Besides contributing largely to the Trans- 

 actions of the New Zealand Institute, the insti- 

 tute has undertaken publications on its own 

 account. Amongst these are the "Index Faunae 

 Novae Zealandia " (1897), edited by Captain 

 Hutton, and "The Subantarctic Islands of New 

 Zealand" (igog), a large work in two volumes, 

 containing reports on a scientific expedition to 

 the Campbell and Auckland Islands, south of New 

 Zealand. This work is the result of an enterprise 

 which the institute took in hand in igo6, when it 

 urged upon the Government the desirableness of 

 extending the magnetic survey of New Zealand 

 to the different groups of islands that lie south of 

 the mainland. The Otago Institute gave its sup- 

 port, and th(; proposal was approved by the New 

 Zealand Institute; and later on the scope of the 

 scheme was extended to include investigations 

 into the geology, zoology, and botapy of the 

 islands. 



The jubilee celebration in August last was 

 attended by a brilliant gathering. Dr. L. Cock- 

 ayne, F.R.S., the president, whose researches in 

 botanv, especially in regard to ecology, are well 

 known in the United Kingdom and other countries, 

 and who has taken a prominent part in the insti- 

 tute enterprises in recent years, presided. In an: 



