OUR MILK SUPPLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13286, 19 September 1906, Page 6

OUR MILK SUPPLY.

"WHOLE SYSTEM WANTS REARRANGING.'' - [BT TELEGR.IfH.—SPECIAL COIIRESrONDENT.] Wellington*, Tuesday. Tv his annual report, Dr. Mason (chief health officer) deals',:.at some length with the question of improving the milk supply. He states that the unsavoury state of many small milking byres, ignorance, .or want of care on the part of many milkers', combined with the occasional bad treatment of the milk by earner or. distributor, results noi. infrequently in transforming an ideal food for children into a veritable agent for 'ill-health, and d<!uth. Dr. Mason says: ."One, has only ,to tako his:walks abroad, before the shutters are down, so to speak, , arid see the heterogeneous kind of receptacle set down outside the respectable ratepayers' doors, into which the milkman is required to dump the pint or quart, and it is easy to realise that even if the milk had escaped all the previous perils it ha» many more to meet. Widemouthed open jugs, tin billies, with hero and there only a properly constructed vessel, adorn the dorsteps or window -sills. Grant that careful inspection ..'lias secured the cleanliness of the milk till the sleepy distributor las measured 'i- it out into the vessel, what dirt and dust may not be swept into it as it waits, exposed to the wind-swept streets? The whole system wants rearranging." Dr. Mason urges that a fair trial should be given to his previous suggestion tlaafc all milk entering a town of over 4000 inhabitants should be delivered through a municipal conduit, namely at a municipal pasteurising factory, where it should be carefully assayed, 'pasteurised, and delivered by officers of the borough.* It would be sent out in properly sealed bottles, thus ensuring cleanliness. The value of a pure milk supply, says Dr. Mason, cannot be over-estimated in its influence upon infantile mortality. Last year infantile diarrh<ea, enteritis, and marasmus carried off 538 of our children under one year of age. These ailments are in many instances only synonymous of impure milk and bad feeding.