correspondence: 
241 
that supply this city with milk, that, to say the very least of it, 
there is a great and immediate necessity for a radical reform. 
When the smart and clean milkman drives up to your door 
with an elaborately painted wagon and silver-mounted harness, 
what a sorrowful contrast to the fountain head. True, many if 
not all of the local Boards of Health have clauses to the following- 
effect in their by-laws : ‘ £ That no person shall offer for sale milk 
from cows or other animals that have for the most part been kept in 
stables, or that have been fed in whole or in part on swill; or milk 
from sick or diseased cows or other animals; or butter or cheese 
made from any such milk.” Now, to my mind, that covers the 
ground completely, but then it is a dead letter, for the very good 
reason that said Boards have no competent officers on their staff 
to regularly visit and examine these cows as to their physical con¬ 
dition. Doubtless the lactometer will detect the presence of water 
in the milk. But I have seen cows milked in this city in such a 
diseased condition, that the mixing of water with their milk 
would be the reverse of a crime. 
If the milk from diseased cows is to be used as at present in 
our large cities, do away with your lactometer, and let our chil¬ 
dren at least have pure water. Neither the use of the lac¬ 
tometer nor the sealing up of the milk in glass jars in the dairies 
as it comes from the cow, is sufficient guarantee to the consumers 
of its quality. 
Nothing but a periodical scientific inspection, (without fear or 
favor), of physical condition of dairy cows can remedy the present 
deplorable state of matters, and protect our children of all classes, 
who use milk so largely as an article of diet, not so much from 
watered milk, as to ensure its being the secretion of none but 
healthy animals. My remarks do not refer to any one particular 
disease, local or general. Had our general pnblic an accurate 
conception of the diseased condition of the animals in our cities 
that supply their tables and families with milk, there would be an 
unanimous and immediate demand for reform. I trust some one 
better able than I will agitate this subject. 
If you consider the foregoing remarks of sufficient importance 
to occupy space in your journal, I will consider it an honor. 
Brooklyn, August 18 th lSTb D. M. McLean, Y. S. 
