128 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



We visited thirty-five cities and found that in thirty-two 

 of them milk which was skimmed and sold as standard milk, 

 or milk which was adulterated with water or formaldehyde, 

 w^as being sold with impunity, thereby practicing fraud on an 

 unsuspecting or helpless public and in addition placing the lives 

 of infants and children of the state in jeopardy. 



So much for adulteration and its effects. In addition to the 

 facts given is the further unpleasant fact that not one of the 

 35 cities escaped having milk sold wnthin its limits from unclean 

 and insanitary cans or vessels, or milk not properly strained, 

 showing a deposit of filth in the bottom of bottles or other vesels. 



In a few of the cities some excellent milk was being sold, but 

 my estimate, based on personal observation of conditions in the 

 various cities which I visited, is that not more than thirty to 

 thirty-five per cent of the milk sold in the cities of the state was 

 in the condition it should, and easily could, be when offered 

 for sale as human food, if only sanitary conditions were observed 

 in the production and handling of it. 



This is indeed a sad state of affairs and becomes sadder 

 when I tell you that there is no law in Illinois under which we 

 can compel sanitary conditions to be observed in the production, 

 manufacture or sale of milk or any other food product without 

 establishing in court that an article or a condition complained of 

 is positively injurious to public health, and, in the case of milk, 

 adulterated with formaldehyde or anything else, we are under the 

 necessity of proving guilty knowledge on the part of the defend- 

 ant which is well nigh impossible to do. 



We collected about 1400 samules, and aside from unclean 

 milk sold from unclean vessels, for we have not the statistics on 

 that point, we brought 76 suits for milk or cream adulterated 

 with formaldehyde, 17 for skimmed milk sold as skimmed as 

 standard milk, 5 for milk both skimmed and watered, 12 for milk 

 below the standard and thirty for watered milk of whicch about 

 17 were against farmers delivering milk to creameries or ship- 

 ping stations. 



In most cases brought, the defendents have entered pleas 

 of guilty while some are fighting, and in Champaign the Depart- 



