Death in the Dairy.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 93, 13 October 1894, Page 4

Death in the Dairy.

■ ■ o A paper by Dr. J. J. Welply, published in the Lancet some weeks ago, under the heading " Creameries and Infectious Diseases," directs attention to a danger that has been mentioned more than once in thesa columns. The author, while heartily approving, on purely commercial grounds, of the co-operative dairying system, points out how easily infectious diseases may be spread from one home to another, and so through a whole district, by menns of the separated milk returned to the snppliers. So long ago as 1868 Dr Taylor suggested that milk was a frequent auent in the dissemination of typhoid fever, and since tnat date his conclusions have been fully confirmed by the irvestigations and experience of other medical men. Dr Welply now establishes beyond a shadow of doubt that a very serious outbreak of disease in one of the English rural districts was due to the distribution nt infected milk from one of theloo^-l festo.ies. The admission of a oOinparr :ively small portion of milk from a household Buffering fro n typhoid was sufficient to do the mis* chief, and it would certainly be well for the managers of our own creameries and butter factories to take every precaution to avoid a similar catastrophe here. Typhoid, it is hardly necessary to remark, do*»s not disappear with "the recovery or death of the last patient. The prerms thrive and multiply in the soil for moothand even years, and the disease reaps pears about a particular locality a. regularly as autumn comes round* Dr Welply suggests a number of elaborate sate- guard?, but he would rely mainly upon the watchfulness ol competent inspectors These he calls very appropriately, sanitary policemen— although they should be more yi^ilant tban the pol.ceraen known in snme parts of the world — and he would cloThe th°m with great powers. They should, be contends, in addition to the u«ual percautions, give notice to all the suppliers of any creamery or factory directly they discovered an outbreak" of disease <hat could possibly infect the separated v ilk. In thf event of sickness among the staff of a dairy they should insist upon the dick person being removed immediately and upon the premises bei»» thoroughly disinfected, I hese rul» s are strictly enforced in the dairying districts of Donmurk, and thoj have, Dr Welply believes, very materia ly assisted in making that country one of the largest and best butter producers in the world. It is comfortable, by the way, after reading r.h" doctor's rather disturbing paper, to learn that butter aoes not appear to desseminate the deadly germs. We may feel constrained to give v using milk as a beverage — even after the passage of Mr M'Kenzie's Dam Bill— but we can continue to enjoy our butter with a certain amount, of confidence. — Ghristchurch Scar.