18 THE MILK. QUESTION 



Infection flows from the country into the city 



We have just said that infection flows from the country 

 into the city. This occurs not only in the milk, but in the 

 water and other articles of food. Cities are fast beginning 

 to learn that even with beautiful parks and boulevards, 

 clean streets, and similar ideal conditions, the health 

 question is only half solved. No city can remain healthy 

 unless it takes into account the health of the country from 

 which it obtains its food supply. This refers especially to 

 the sanitary conditions of the surrounding territory which 

 furnish it with fresh materials commonly consumed raw, 

 among which the most important is milk. 



It is interesting to note at this point that at one time 

 there was much more disease and a much higher death rate 

 in the city than in the country. The tables have now been 

 turned, for there is less chance of contracting infection in a 

 well-ordered city than in the average country place. The 

 reasons for this are plain. For a long time people did not 

 know how to live huddled together in large communities. 

 The sanitary sciences were in their dark ages. Every man 

 was his own sanitarian. Fads and fancies ruled the day in 

 matters hygienic. In cities people partook of polluted 

 water without a qualm. In fact, it took people a long 

 time to find out that the inexpressibly nasty habit of 

 drinking water defiled with sewage was dangerous as well 

 as not nice. The wastes from human life were not properly 

 and promptly disposed of. It is only in comparatively 

 recent years that water-closets, and the exceedingly satis- 

 factory system of water carriage for the prompt removal of 

 sewage and kitchen waste has supplanted the old privy and 

 sink. Formerly, organic matter was allowed to collect 

 about the premises in which rats, flies, and other vermin 

 bred and fed. In fact " man lived on a dung hill." This 

 has been partly corrected and each householder should 

 now consider it part of the day's work to clean up his 



