400 MILK AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH chap. 



vended milk closely follows the prevailing standards. In 

 certain places the local authorities, by refusing to prosecute 

 unless infringements are well below the standard, have practi- 

 cally reduced the standards for their districts with disastrous 

 results to the unprotected consumer. Dr. Buchanan ^ gives a 

 striking instance of this. In the borough of Middlesbrough 

 it became the practice of the local authority to disregard the 

 milk standards and not to institute legal proceedings against 

 the vendor in any case where the sample of milk had a fat 

 content of over 2-7 per cent. The proportion of milk samples 

 infringing the legal standard for milk fat increased from 14 

 per cent in 1905 to 17, 30, and 35 per cent in the three 

 following years. In 1909 the proportion was 32 per cent. 

 " This progressive deterioration could not be attributed to 

 alteration of methods of sampling, and had occurred notwith- 

 standing the considerable energy which had be shown by the 

 sampling officers of the local authority." 



(b) A low standard, such as the present legal one, is 

 undoubtedly prejudicial to the producer of high- class milk, 

 and is an incentive to dishonest practices. The high-grade 

 milk producer has to compete with milk vendors whose 

 deliberately impoverished milk fetches precisely the same 

 price as the high-class milk. By the use of semi-legalised 

 practices the fraudulent milk vendor, while keeping within 

 the four corners of the law, is in a position, owing to his 

 enhanced profits, to undersell the honest milk producer and 

 purveyor. The term " semi-legalised " is used, for while it is 

 clearly an offence to add or abstract anything from milk, exen 

 if thereby the milk is not reduced below the legal limits, yet 

 in practice the methods of chemical analysis are the only 

 means of detection available. 



(c) In a few cases, individually not numerous, and collect- 

 ively, compared with the total, nearly negligible, the mixed 

 milk of a herd of cows may and does fall below the legal 

 standards as regards its chemical constituents. When such a 

 condition exists it is usually for a temporary period only, and 

 almost invariably is present at but one out of the two daily 

 milking periods. 



^ Report on JVurk of Food Inspectors, Annual Report of Medical Officer, 

 Local Gocernment Board, 1909-10, pp. 210-211. 



