FILTH AS infants' FOOD 99 



connected with the health boards of all our large cities 

 will bear me out when I say that such conditions as I 

 have described are by no means unusual : they are the 

 rule, almost, rather than the exception. 



Here, for example, is a terse description of a dairy, 

 published by the Bureau of Animal Industry of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture : — 



"The herd consists of forty native cows, fed corn 

 meal and brewers' grains. The stable is poor and 

 very dirty, and the cows are filthy and packed closely 

 together. A pile of manure as high as the window 

 surrounds the stable and the yard is correspondingly 

 faulty. Two hundred and forty quarts of milk are 

 produced daily. It is carried to the house, nearly a 

 quarter of a mile away, and cooled in a tank of ice- 

 water, being at 50° to 60° when sold. The well is 

 near the house and less than one hundred feet from a 

 privy vault. This water supplies the stock and all 

 other purposes." ** 



Conditions such as these are not peculiar to this 

 country, but are more or less common throughout 

 the civilized world, wherever cows are kept. Dr. 

 Leslie Mackenzie only states the truth very forcibly 

 when he says: — 



"To watch the milking of cows is to watch a process 

 of unscientific inoculation of a pure, or almost pure, 

 medium with unknown quantities of unspecified germs. 

 Everywhere throughout the whole process of milking 



