20 T. P. ANDERSON STUART. 



difficulty, if the proper means be adopted, and such milk 

 ought never to be used as food. There is far less difficulty 

 in recognising clinically that a cow is distinctly suffering 

 from tuberculosis, in which case she may be yielding tuber- 

 culous milk. The milk coming from such a cow ought not 

 to form part of human food, and, indeed, ought not to be 

 used as food at all. Our results clearly point to the 

 necessity of measures more stringent than those at present 

 enforced being taken to prevent the sale or the consumption 

 of such milk." Here then is the complete refutation of 

 Koch's startling statement. We wonder how ever he 

 could have made it. It is also justification of our own 

 Board's position. Not laxer, but stricter must our super- 

 vision be. 



A review of the infantile mortality of the Metropolis for 

 the past ten years is most encouraging. The deaths under 

 one year of age for 1897- 1906 inclusive are in proportion 

 to each 1,000 births:— 1897, 129 1902, 112 



1898, 153 1903. 116 



1899, 120 1904, 98 



1900, 109 1905, 89 



1901, 120 1906, 84 



This very marked decline of the infantile mortality is, I 

 am convinced, due in large part to the better supervision 

 of the milk and food supplies, the former being the 

 principal food of just those members of the community 

 whose death rate has so markedly declined. The change 

 is too sudden to be due to any other cause than the one I 

 mentioned. In a country, then, where population is so 

 much to be desired, apart from other circumstances, the 

 preservation of infant life is of the greatest importance. 

 When so much is being said as to securing immigrants, 

 surely it is worth while doing our utmost to preserve the 

 life of the little immigrants of our own flesh and blood. 



