4IO MILK AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH chap. 



Education is required, but it is especially education of 

 the consumer. The consumer as an individual is usually 

 totally ignorant of the bacterial content of his milk, and is in 

 consequence completely apathetic about it. The idea that 

 his milk may have been depleted of its cream will sometimes 

 throw the householder into a white heat of indignation 

 against his dairyman, with beneficial results as regards the 

 future fat content of his milk ; but the fact that he and his 

 may and do consume countless hordes of bacteria, some of 

 them actively virulent, which certainly ought not to be there, 

 moves him not at all, as he does not know of their presence. 

 Even if the matter is explained, he would probably not 

 be greatly alarmed since he would not comprehend their 

 significance. 



As showing the lack of interest by the public, Heine- 

 mann ^ mentions that in Boston, a city of 600,000 population, 

 where milk investigation is invited by the authorities, the 

 average number of samples presented for examination daily is 

 less than one. The apathy of the general public is further 

 shown by the failure of milk companies to maintain their 

 financial footing when they have given the pubhc a pure, 

 clean milk, but at the same time have had to charge an 

 increased price for it. 



Certain efforts have been made by individuals or companies 



who regarded real cleanliness precautions as a silly fad. The great majoiity 

 take refuge in the following argument in turn : First, that they do take all 

 necessary steps, and that practically nothing does get into the milk. Con- 

 fronted with milkers with filthy hands, and with still filthier cows, they 

 abandon this argument for the next, which is, that if anything does get into 

 the milk the strainer removes it all. Strainer, with much gross maniirial filth 

 removed by it from the milk, produced in triumphant confirmation. With 

 the significance of this explained to them they fall back upon their final plea, 

 that perhaps manure does get into the milk, but it does not matter, and they 

 milk like their fathers before them, and what was good enough for their fathers 

 is good enough for them. The latter may be a true statement, but, as the 

 writer explains to them, is not the point, which is whether it is good enough for 

 the milk consumer who may not desire what their and his father had. Their 

 fathers had a heavy incidence of infectious disease, a, heavy tuberculosis 

 mortality, and always a high death-rate. These are not good enough to-day. 

 The statement also neglects the imj^ortant modern effect of urbanisation, and 

 the fact that milk usually has now to travel very many miles to all the large 

 cities. Also the practical abolition of the milkmaid has diminished cleanliness 

 in milking. 



1 Archives of Pediatrics, 1908. 



