THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1907. UNWHOLESOME MILK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8874, 7 November 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1907. UNWHOLESOME MILK.

Or. Archer Hosking is to be congratulated upon having drawn pointed attention to the condition of the milk supply in the Borough of Masterton. His allegations may, perhaps, be somewhat too sweeping, but the subject is one which does not warrant half-heartedness in treatment. Where human lives are dependent upon the purity of food supplies, and where the commonest and most necessary article of human consumption is, through neglect, transformed into an insidious deadly poison, there should be no mincing of terms in dealing with the subject. Dr. Hosking, in his righteous indignation at the condition of things he has just described, leads his readers to the supposition that the whole of the milk supply in Masterton is tainted. Whether this is so or not we are unable to say, nor do we think the doctor himself is able to demonstrate. Only a complete and rigid examination of every dairy and of the contents of the cans of every milk vendor would prove or disprove this; but it" is reasonable to suppose that some of the milk supplied to j the townspeople is not as impure a.s is indicated. In another column we givo the results of some interviews with the principal vendors in the borough, and it must be admitted that they support, to an extent that is calculated to make consumers feel uneasy, the charges levelled at the milk s'ipply by the doctor. There should be no resting now until a thorough investigation is made by the Health Department, and that inveatigation' should be made promptly. If filthy milk is being sold, the offence should be speedily sheeted home to the offenders, not only for their punishment and the protection of the com- \ munity, but as a matter of justice to those vendors v/ho take erery pre- ' caution to retail milk in a pure condition. Meanwhile the thanks of the residents in the borough are clue

to Dr. Archer Hosking for dra.ving pointed attention to a serious menace to the health of the people. If the members of the medical profession generally would take their courage in both hands and come forward to expose abuses which are detrimental to the public health, no matter in what form they occur, it would be a great aid to the Health Department and a great boon to their fellow colonists.