THE MILK SUPPLY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 569, 21 May 1913, Page 6

THE MILK SUPPLY.

The following is a continuation of Dr Champtaloup's lecture-demonstra-tion on "Some Bacteria of Everylady Life." As it deals with the milk supply we know that all readers of (his column will be interested: — Having now discussed some elemen tary facts 1 regarding the life history of bacteria in general, and some pointsof public health interest regarding some of the bacteria affecting children, I shall, in conclusion, briefly describe to you some experiments in the bacteriology of our Dunedin milk supply, which we hava carrijd ous during the last few weeks, for the purpose of this lecture. Unfortunately, the results of those experiments, which I have made in my private capacity, in order to ascertain the relationship between infant mortality from tuberculosis and the presence tubercle bacilli in the milk supply, are not yet complete* owing to this lecture being required a month earlier than I expected, and to the recent failure of electrical power, upon which we depend for the machinery used in some of the experiments. I might mention in passing, however, what we have so far done. Here 1 may be allowed a word of explanation. Some concern has been expressed to me by people interested dairymen and others —regarding the effects of the lecture on their trade, but as a result of the lecture I hope thpse good people will be convinced that not only doe? the Dunedin milk supply compare more than favourably in all respects with the milli supply in other large centres, but that the public will see that milk, if carefully handled, is one of the cleanest and best of foods. It is quite foreign to the policy of my department to injure any individual from who supplies of milk are obtained. There are proper channels through which such a state of things can be remedied, but under no circumstances now or at any other time, would my department give publicity to the name of any party from whom it obtained supplies.

INVESTIGATIONS IN BRITAIN. In looking over the results of similar work which has recently been done in Great Britain we find that in Manchester where Professor Delepine has devoted a great deal of and energy to the tubercle-in-milk question, the samples of milk which contained tubercle bacilli have, largely as a result of the professor's work, fal len from 7.2 per cent, in 1898 to 5.9 fer cent, in 1907. The figures obtained for the London County Council recently were 11.6 per cent, of tuberculous milk supplies.

Again, if we look at the deaths of children under five years of age from tuberculosis in Great Britain, we find that of the 60,000 persons who die annually from tuberculosis 11,000 are children under five years of agethat is, in that section of the community which depends most upon milk for nourishment This works out roughly at 244 infants per million of the population.

RESEARCH IN NEW ZEALAND. It has always struck me that an investigation along similar lines in New Zealand would be money and time well spent, but I regret to say that research work, valuable as it often is in the public interest, is not encouraged as it should be, and I throw it out as a hint, which, I hope, may find sympathetic attention from some emben of this audience, that much good could be done by our medical schools if funds were available for the purposes of research. If we examine the statistics for New Zealand we find that only 57 deaths occurred from tuberculosis in infants under five years of age in 1911, and 65 in 1910. This makes a rate of about 60 per million of the population. Compare the enormous difference to that of Great Britain—6o as against 244 per million. No doubt the improved and more sanitary conditions under which we live here account for a great deal of this difference in our favour. In an endeavour tJ compare the milk supply here with that of Manchester and London we have examined, by request, the milk for tubercle from 25 dairy farms supplying this town. The procedure in each case is somewhat lengthy, and, as I have just stated the complete results are riot yet available. So far as we are able to judge, however there is no cause for alarm in this repect in Dunedin. The chemical and bacteriological examination of the milk of 300 herds supplying Dunedin will take many months to complete, but, from what I have already done, I expect to find a very low percentage of tubercular milk samples. For this we have to thank the energy of the officers of the Stock Department, and the earnest d«sire of many of the dairymen themselves to keep their milk as pure as possible. Another safeguard is the fact that a company which largely supplies Dunedin with milk pasteurises 80 par cent, of the milk it sends out. This, heating of the milk to 160deg. Fahr. for 20 minutes kills any tubercle bacilli, or other harmful germs present, though it does not necessarily kill all the other germs, as I shall presently show you. The remaining experiments deal with the general bacterial content of a series of milk samples as supplied in Dunedin. Dr Champtaloup's lecture will be concluded next week.