176 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



are invariably on the side of evil. In Ithaca's case 

 the authorities of a great American university, who 

 should have been in the very vanguard of the fight 

 for better conditions, were either actively defending 

 the private company or indifferent to the public 

 welfare. If, as a great American physician has said, 

 "every time there is a death from typhoid somebody 

 ought to be hanged for murder," it is safe to say that 

 in Ithaca the application of that drastic rule would 

 have taken away many of the "good citizens" and 

 seriously depleted the ranks of the faculty of the 

 university in that city.^ 



As Dr. F. Lawson Dodd has said, "It was epidemics 

 and not epigrams that caused the municipalization 

 of the main sources of our water supply," * a remark 

 as applicable to this country as to England. So far 

 as the relation of the milk supply to the public health 

 is concerned, there is no argument which can be used 

 in support of the municipalization of the water service 

 which is not equally valid and forcible when used in 

 favor of municipal milk. The perils involved in the 

 use of infected or impure milk are, as regards infants, 

 very much greater than those involved in ,the use of 

 polluted water, for the very simple reason that babies 

 in many cases are wholly dependent upon the milk 

 supply for food. Moreover, water, so far as is known, 

 never carries the germs of tuberculosis, while, as we 

 have seen, milk very commonly does. 



