TYPHOID FEVEK IN DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
69 
In another instance a driver was seen to till some empty bottles 
he had collected on his route by dipping the bottles, including his 
fingers, into the can of milk. 
LOCATION AND GENERAL CONDITION. 
Dairies are usually situated on the first floor; sometimes in dingy 
basements or cellars. Some of them are in poor sanitary condition, 
others fair; a few were in fine order at the time of inspection. 
The location of most of the dairies is pernicious so far as general 
sanitary surroundings are concerned. Many of them are situated 
near squalid settlements or abut on unkempt alleys. Close relation 
between almost all dairies and stables has already been referred to. 
There are a large number of small purveyors of milk hi the Dis- 
trict. Through a technicality in the law these small places, mostly 
small corner stores, while subjected to inspection, are immune to the 
general sanitary requirements of the health department. The con- 
ditions under which the milk is kept and retailed in some of these 
places can better be imagined than described. In some instances we ^ 
found small grocer}^ stores selling a cent’s worth of milk from bottles 
or cans, while upstairs or in an adjoining room typhoid fever cases ' 
were being treated. The same hands that cared for the sick dispensed 
milk. Flies passed freely from the sick room to the store, and the 
chances of conveying the infection from the patient to milk and 
other articles sold in the store were favorable. 
THE cows. 
Good milk can only come from healthy cows. But as cattle are 
not subject to typhoid fever, and this infection always enters the 
milk after leaving the animal, we made no special study of the condi- 
tion of the cows furnishing the milk supply of the District of Columbia. 
EXAMINATIONS OF THE MILK FURNISHED THE DISTRICT OF 
COLUMBIA. 
During the warm months a number of samples of milk were pur- 
chased on the open market and examined in the Hygienic Laboratory. 
The samples of milk were examined bacteriologically, chemically, and 
physically, as far as such methods serve a useful purpose from the 
public health standpoint. 
A total of 215 samples of milk, obtained from 44 dairies, were 
examined and the results, condensed in tabular form, are given on 
pages 73 to 79. 
