PURE versus puEiriED milk 261 



sale of raw milk having a low standard of bacterial 

 content, approximating the standard set by Professor 

 von Behring, and free from disease germs. As to the 

 principle involved of giving the parents an option in 

 the matter, it is rather suggestive that the advocates 

 of laissez faire in this particular do not suggest that 

 the rxile should be generally applied. There is at least 

 quite as much dispute as to the efficiency of vaccina- 

 tion, but they do not suggest that parents should be 

 allowed an option in the matter of the vaccination of 

 their children; there is a not inconsiderable body of 

 unbelief in doctors and medicine nowadays, but those 

 who oppose pasteurization upon the ground that the 

 parents ought to be given an option do not, I have 

 observed, admit the right of the Christian Science 

 believer to have an option in the matter of calling a 

 doctor for his sick child. In all other matters they 

 recognize that the child belongs to society rather than 

 to the parents. 



So much for the principle involved. As a practical 

 question, theories of parental laissez faire and the 

 responsibility of society for the child's welfare enter 

 into it hardly at all. Except by a few individuals, 

 perhaps, it is not proposed that parents should be 

 compelled to give their infants pasteurized milk and 

 forbidden to give them raw milk. It is proposed 

 simply that municipalities should face the fact that 

 the ordinary milk supply is a menace to childhood, 



