IMPORTANT JUDGMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 16 March 1925, Page 4

IMPORTANT JUDGMENT

MILK TEST CHALLENGED. DAIRY COMPANY'S DEFENCE SUCCEEDS.

CHRISTCHURCH. March 11. •Air Wyvern AVilson, S.M., delivered an important judgment in the .Magistrate's Court yesterday, when he dismissed a charge laid against the Ellesmere and Greenpark Dairy Co. Ltd., by the Health Department, of having sold milk which was alleged to he below the standard prescribed. AA'hen the case was first heard on AA ednosday. the (onii any. through its counsel. AH ,\. E. Wright, pleaded not guilty and challenged the cliicicucy of the test for determining the standard of milk. It was then stated by Inspector J. McKenzie, an officer of the Health Department, that at about (CIO o’clock on, the morning of January 21st. he purchased milk from one of the company’s milkmen on the street. Altogether he bought twelve pint samples of milk and placed them in bottles, which were afterwards sealed, and then he put them in a leather bag, on the floor of his motor-ear. About two hours later he placed the Ellesmere and Greenpark Daily Co.’s sample on a bench in the laboratory of the Government analyst. The milk was tested about mid-day.

'ounscl for the company submitted

to his Worship that on the inspector's evidence the reductase test was not a fair one. The company was charged with having sold milk which did not comply with the test, hut the milk had been tested some hours after the sample was taken. He contended, therefore, that the bacteria in the milk had had time to develop. If the test was

ho made a fair one, lie said, then the Health Department in Christchurch ,hould do the same, as 'was done in Wellington. There, as soon rs an inPeetor took a sample from a milkman. io placed the sample in an ice-chest bus arresting the development of the

. s _ bacteria, (.. Lengthy technical evidence was taken , 0 on the point, and it was continued yes- ;]. terday, when the Government Analyst, Mr A. A. llickcrton, said he subjected sc a sample of the company’s milk to the , reductase test and found that it would ,*. not stand it. in his opinion the veduc>f ta.se test was the host test ever inj vented. Ho was sure that there was „ not a doctor in Christchurch who would i_ allow a. child under six years to drink milk which would not stand up to the a. test. Personally he expected milk s taken from a cow in the morning to , prove good, when subjected to the re--5 ductase test, up till six- o'clock t.lio same evening. “This ease is a very important cise.” i said the Magistrate, when summing up. “ All the scientific experts are agreed

I that the reductase test was most valuable in ascertaining the purity or otherwise of the milk—it was important to the health of the general public*. A sample ot this firm’s milk was taken, and subjected to the test, but it failed to pass it . . . The sample was taken at twenty minutes to seven in the morning, of January 21st, which was the middle of summer. After that it was taken around the town for about two. hours oil the iloor of the inspector’s motor-car. It was a warm morning and I suppose there was a certain amount of oscillation. The sample wa,s then placed in the Government analyst's laboratory, on a bench there which is under the window. The morning sun could stream in through the window and I think I am correct in

supposing Hint the room was not cool. •Just he to re noon the analyst went to the laboratory and at 12 o’clock he commenced to make the test. The milk should have stood the test for three hours, but it only stood it for two hours. The evidence of Mr A. M. M right, who holds several honours, is j to the effect that when samples of milkare taken they should he kept in a cool place—that the proper course is to keep them in an ice-chest. That was not done in this case, and T think that, on the evidence I have before me. it would lie very unsafe to convict. It was live hours after the inspector took

the sample that the test was made, and in view of Mr Wright’s evidence, aud the tests made by him, I cannot con-

vict, It does not matter much in the

winter about keeping the milk in cool places, hut in the summer it is different. When a Public Health Officer takes a sample of milk it should he kept in a cool place. The information is dismissed.” Mr A. T. Donnelly said that as the circumstances in the ease covered the one against the Christchurch Jlairy Company, another firm similarly charged, he would offer no evidence. The case was accordingly dismissed for want of prosecution.”