MILK FOR SCHOOLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24227, 20 February 1940, Page 15

MILK FOR SCHOOLS

“POSSIBILITY OF INTERFERENCE" BOTTLES DELIVERED OVERNIGHT “In the last war in Belgium wells were polluted and cows were contaminated with the hypodermic needle, and it is quite within the realm of possibility that a whole school could be destroyed in one day by an act of sabotage, by putting a hypodermic needle through the caps of milk bottles,” said Mr W. Howley, chairman of the Woolston School Committee, at a meeting in Christchurch of the Canterbury School Committee’s Association. A letter to the association from the committee said:— “ We view with alarm the present arrangements governing the delivery of milk at the school. The milk is now delivered at the school at 8.15 p.m, and is not used till 10 a.m. the following morning. Thus it is left in a skeleton cabinet for about 14 hours, and although the cabinet is locked, in these unsettled times anyone could gain access to the cabinet by removing the battens at the back and remove any quantity of milk. The matter which specially alarms us from a health point of view is the fact that the cardboard caps of the bottles could be punctured and any chemical or serum be inserted without being detected by the user of the milk and thus spreading epidemics and disease.” Mr Howley said at the meeting that

the vendor had told him that petrol re* strictions forced him to deliver the milk at night, a statement later contradicted by Mr T. H. Langford. “ In the summer time it is over the edge,” Mr Howley said. ‘‘And I am sure that the Education Board is in the dark about it. as no member would sanction it.” Mr J. G. Brown said that in some cases milk was delivered too late, and children could not be expected to eat a dinner very soon after drinking a pint of milk. Another delegate quoted the recent remarks in Christchurch of Dr Halliday Sutherland, the author, who had said that pasteurisation “made dirty milk fit to drink.” Mr F. &. Nome said he would like the whole milk scheme done away with. “Far better give them apples,” he said. The president (Mr F. H. Dephoff) and the secretary (Mr R. S. H. Buchanan) will approach the Health department.