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pure milk under the auspices of medical milk commissions. This 
plan contained the following general requirements: 
First. Tliat physicians give their practical support to an effort conducted by a 
medical milk commission selected by a medical society which shall endeavor to 
bring to the city a supply of milk produced under such regulations that purity 
shall be assured. 
Second. That appro’s ed and trustworthy dairymen possessing honor, financial 
ability, and dairy facilities shall be induced by reason of promised medical 
support and the increased price of their milk to conduct their dairies, collect, 
and handle tlie product in conformity with the code of requirements made by 
the aforesaid medical commission and imposed by it in due legal form. 
Third. That the duties of the commission shall be, first, to establish correct 
clinical standards of purity for cows’ milk ; second, be responsible for a period- 
ical and personal inspection of the dairy or dairies under its patronage ; third, 
to provide for bimonthly expert examination of the dairy stock by competent 
and approved veterinarians and for medical supervision of the employees by 
competent physicians. 
The milk produced shall also be subject to periodical chemical analysis and 
to bacterial counts made under the direction of the commission as often as in 
its judgment is desirable. The experts employed by the commission shall 
render their reports to this body, which constitute the basis of its certification 
of the product. 
The expense of examinations and inspections shall be defrayed by the dairy- 
men ; but, the members of the commission shall receive no pay for their services 
The findings of the commission shall be published to the profession only, 
and the milk thus produced shall be known as “ certified milk ” and be sold 
in quart containers bearing the date of milking and the seal of the commis- 
sion.“ 
In 1893 the Medical Society of Essex County, N. J., adopted this 
plan and organized the first medical milk commission in the United 
States. 
A dairyman was found who was willing to undertake the produc- 
tion of milk according to the folloAying standards of purity formu- 
lated by Doctor Coit in connection with the original plan : 
First. An absence of large numbers of micro-organisms and the entire free- 
dom of the milk from pathogenic varieties. 
Second. Unvarying resistance to early fermentative changes in the milk, so 
that it may be kept under ordinary conditions without extraordinary care. 
Third. A constant nutritive value of known chemical composition and a 
uniform relation between the percentage constituents of fat, proteid, and 
carbohydrate. 
The following formal contract was therefore signed May 19, 1893, 
under which periodical inspections of the dairy, veterinary examina- 
tions of the herd, chemical analyses and bacteriological counts of the 
milk were instituted: 
a Coit, H. L. Brief history of the development of the pure milk movement in 
the United States. 
