14 THE MARKETING OF WHOLE MILK 



property to a use in which the pubhc has an interest, he, 

 in effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and 

 must submit to be controlled by the public for the com- 

 mon good to the extent of the interest he has thus created. 

 He may withdraw his grant by discontinuing the use; 

 but, so long as he maintains the use, he must submit to 

 the control." 



Obviously the milk dealer grants to the public an inter- 

 est in his business, since the business undeniably afFects 

 public welfare; first, physical welfare, that is, freedom from 

 disease; second, economic welfare, that is, protection from 

 the extortions of a monopoly and from the frauds of adul- 

 terators. A great amount of the literature dealing with 

 the milk business is devoted to a consideration of its dis- 

 ease-carrying properties. MacNutt, for example, has 

 brought together many compilations of statistics showing 

 hundreds of instances of the transmission of disease germs 

 through milk.' Moreover, as was shown in Section i, 

 milk meets a particularly essential need, a need which can- 

 not be satisfied by means of substitutes, a need which 

 is so important that the nation cannot afford to allow it 

 to remain unsatisfied. The public is then vitally concerned 

 in the handling of a food which is at once so potent a car- 

 rier of disease and such a necessity, and therefore the milk 

 business is affected with a public interest. 



It is sometimes said that if this is true of the milk busi- 

 ness, the same must be true of the distribution of meat and 

 of TJther foods. Meat and milk, to be sure, are comparable 

 in so far as both are easily contaminated and are likely to 

 harbor disease geniis. Milk, however, is much more 

 likely to be a germ carrier, first, because it is a better me- 

 dium for the development of bacterial life; second, because 



' MacNutt, J. S., The Modern Milk Problem, pp 22 to 29. 



