168 MILK HYGIENE 



vice and, on this account, the difficulty health officers 

 have experienced in securing inspectors to do such work 

 in a satisfactory way and, secondly, the expense. A 

 properly- equipped dairy farm inspector must have had 

 special training, and must be familiar icith, and he able 

 to apply, facts from pathology, bacteriology, zootechnics 

 and dairy husbandry. 



Dr. William T. Sedgwick has emphasized the impor- 

 tance of control of the source of the milk supply, to pre- 

 vent pollution, as follows : ^" 



' ' It should never be forgotten that if water were to 

 be drawn, as milk is, from the l^ody of a cow standing in 

 a stable, by the hands of workmen of questionable clean- 

 liness, and then stored and transported over long dis- 

 tances in imperfectly cleaned, closed cans, being further 

 manipulated more or less, and finally left at the doors 

 at an uncertain hour of the day, few would care to drink 

 it, because its pollution and staleness would be obvious. 

 It is clear, moreover, that it requires and deserves more 

 careful treatment than water, for it is more valuble, 

 more trusted and more readily falsified or decomposed." 



Dr. Rowland Gr. Freeman has stated his opinion as to 

 the importance of controlling the source of the milk sup- 

 ply, rather than to attempt to determine its character by 

 bacteria counts, in these words: " It seems to me that 

 while the counts of bacteria are exceedingly valuable as 

 an exponent of cleanliness and proper handling of milk, 

 they should be used only to prevent carelessness at the 

 dairy and to stimulate better methods and discipline. 



" The opinion of a milk commission of representa- 

 tive men (experts) based on an actual knowledge of the 

 management of the dairy is of vastly more value to the 



"'" Sedj^wick, Principles of Sanitary Science and the Public 

 Health. New York and London, 1902, page 279. 



