Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/649

Rh hold him responsible. But it is questionable whether the milk supply of the large city is not more reliable. The milk supply in the city is handled by organizations, and these, on the whole, are rather more likely to exercise care in the treatment of the milk than are the small dealers. The advantage of handling the matter through companies is well shown in many European cities. In the large cities of England and the continent the milk business is commonly handled by concerns that distribute great quantities daily. Now, many of these companies deal with the subject in a very intelligent manner. They exercise a very considerable control over the individual dairy farms. Some of them keep inspectors traveling constantly among the farms, spending $10,000 to $15,000 yearly in such inspections. They will receive no milk from a farm until after an inspector has visited it and looked into the hygienic conditions of the dairy, even sometimes going so far as to make an analysis of the water used in the dairy. Only after such inspection has been declared favorable is the milk received in the city. These inspections are repeated monthly. The appearance of a contagious disease on the farm is noted at once and the milk no longer received, although still paid for. These companies employ chemists and bacteriologists to study the character of the milk received. They educate their men into their business, and consequently employ more intelligent help than small concerns can. They can furnish a more uniform product than can be expected of smaller dealers. They soon acquire a reputation for their milk, which they are very careful to preserve. Such firms can exercise a much more satisfactory control over the individual farmer than can even public statute, since, with their systems of inspection, it is possible to have an accurate knowledge of the actual conditions under which the milk is produced. It is plainly within the power of firms dealing in large quantities to control the character of its milk more accurately than can small dealers.

Results, too, appear on the whole in favor of the large dealers. In the cities where there is a system of rigid milk inspection it is comparatively seldom that the milk furnished by such companies is found below the standard. This milk is kept up to the standard, and the companies having a chemical laboratory and having milk from many sources can keep the quality of the milk much more uniform than can a dealer whose supply comes from a single farm. The milk inspectors usually find that it is the small dealers that fail to meet the standard. Moreover, it is a fact that where epidemics have been traced to milk it has always been in communities where individual milkmen bring in milk from one or two dairies and distribute it personally. All the epidemics of typhoid that have