OUR BABIES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1758, 24 May 1913, Page 11

OUR BABIES.

[BT HTGEU.] Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Women, and Children. "It is wteer to put up ft fence at the toj of a precipice than to maintain an amen lance at tlie bottom." THE MILK SUPPLY. The following is a continuation of Dr. Champtaioup's lecture-demonstration on "Somo Bacteria of Everyday Lifo," delivered. before tho Duiicdiu Society for tho Health of Women and Children:— "Having now discussed some elementary facts regarding tho life history of bacteria in general, and some points of public health interest regarding 6ome of the bacteria affecting children, 1 shall, in conclusion, briefly describe somo experiments in tho bacteriology of the Dunedin milk supply, which wo have carried out during the last few weeks, for the purpose of this lecture. Unfortunately, tho results of thoso experiments, which I havo nic-do in my private capacity, in order to ascertain the relationship between infant mortality from tuberculosis and the presonco of tubercle bacilli ia tho milk supply, are not yet complete, 1 owing to this lecture being required a month earlier than I expected, and to the recent failuro of electrical power, upon which we depend for the machinery used in some of the experiments. I hiight mention in passing, however, what we have %o far done. "Here I may bo allowed a word of explanation. Some concern has been expressed to me by people interested-dairy-men and others—regarding the effects of the lecture on their trade, but as a result of the lecture I hope these good people will be oonvinced that not only does tho Dunedin milk supply compare more than favourably in all respects with tho milk supply in other largo centres, but that tho public will see that milk, if carefully handled, is one of the cleanest and best of foods. It is quite'foreign to tho policy of my department to injure any individual from whom supplies of milk ure obtained. Thero aro 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 uamo 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 time and energy to the tubercle-in-milk question, the samples of milk which' contained tuberclo bacilli have, largely as a result of the professor's work, fallen from 17.2 per cent. : n IS9B to 5.9 per cent, in 1907. The figures obtained for tho London County Council recently were 11.6 per cent, of tuberculous milk supplies. "Again, if we look ata the deaths of children under five years of' age from tuberculosis in Great Britain,' we find that of tho 60,000 persons who die annually from tuberculosis 11,000 aTe children under five years of age—that _ is. in that section of tho community which depends most upon milk for nourishment. This works out, roughly, at 2-1-1 infants per million of the population. RESEARCH IN NEW ZEALAND. "It has always struck me that an inr vestigation along similar lines in New Zealand would be money and time well spent, but I regret to say that research work, valuablo 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 members of this audience, that much good could bo done by our Medical School if funds were available for tho purposes of research. If we examine the statistics for New Zealand, we find that only 57 death occurred from tuberculosis in infanta under five years of ago in 1911, and 65 in 1910. This makes a Tate of about GO per million of the population. Compare the enormous difference to that of Great Britain—6o as against 2i4 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 to comparo the milk Bupply hero with that of Manchester and London we have examined, by request, the milk for tubercle from 25 dairy farms supplying this town. Tho procedure in each case' is somewhat -lengthy, and, as I have just stated, the complete results, are not yet available. So far as we are able to judge, however, there is no cause for alarm in this Tespoct in Dunedin. The chemical and bacteriological examination of tho milk of SOO 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. JTor this we have to thank tho cnergy of tho officers of the Stock Department, and the earnest desire of many of the dairymen themselves to keep their milk as pure as possible. "Another great safeguard is tho fact that a company which largely supplies Dunedin with milk pasteurises 80 per cent, of the milk it sends out. This heating of tho milk to 16fldeg. F. for 20 minutes kills any tubercle baclili or other harmful germs present, though it does not necessarily kill all the other germs. The remaining experiments deal with the general bacterial content of a series j of milk samples as supplied in Dunedin." Dr. Champtaioup's lecture will be concluded next week. Glaxo Builds Bonny Babies.—Advt.