The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, JULY 2, 1908. OUR MILK SUPPLY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2232, 2 July 1908, Page 2

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, JULY 2, 1908. OUR MILK SUPPLY.

A correspondent writing in yesterday’s issuo draws attention to the necessity for a pure milk supply and incidentally quotes from personal experience tho methods of some of the local milkmen. AVo should he loth to beliovo that the position is quite as unsatisfactory as indicated' by our correspondent, but there can ho no doubt that much greater stringency in regard to tlio inspection of our milk supply is necessary if we aro to have a reasonablo assurance of its purity. Only tlioso who have carefully studied the subject can have any conception of tlio important part milk plays in the Dominion deathrate. The greatest scourge in the decimation of our people is tuberculosis. and all the expert evidence available goes to show that the most potent factor in the dissemination of and perpetuation of tubercular disease in tile Dominion at the present time is infected cow’s milk. It is only by the most rigid inspection of dairies .and the insistence of scrupulous, cleanliness on the part of all who handle milk for human consumption that the community can secure cv-.u approximate freedom from the danger referred to. ‘ The close connection between pure milk and the health of the community generally is now being recognised in the formation of organisations in some of our chief centres for the sale of humanised milk for the use of infants. It is scarcely too much to say that thousands of children born in the ■ Dominion have the seeds* of consumption planted in their constitution through being fed on diseased- or impure cow’s milk. The tubercle germs may out the young life short or they may lie dormant and their existence never suspected until the person affeoted arrives at maturity, but the danger is always t7iere, and a new source of infection has been created. A good deal can be done to chock consumption by the dissemination of knowledge concerning some, of the elementary .rules for the government of health amongst the younger generation, but a big stop- forward will have been taken when tlio necessity for a thoroughly clean and pure supply of milk for the community is recognised as the first duty of the local authority in ©very town in the Dominion}