On the sanitary requirements of a dairy farm / by the Medical Officer of Health of Glasgow.

  • Russell, James Burn, 1837-1904.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the sanitary requirements of a dairy farm / by the Medical Officer of Health of Glasgow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    IV.—Disease in Man in relation to Milk. By the Dairies, Cowsheds, and Milkshops' Order it is declared to be unlawful for any person suffering from a dangerous infectious disorder, or having recently been in contact with a person so suffering, to milk cows or otherwise engage in the business of milk production or distribution. Contact ought to be regarded as meaning any sort of communication, direct or indirect, with infectious disease, e.g., it would be obviously dangerous for any one who had been in the sick room, or who had washed an infected washing, to proceed at once to milk cows, &c. The only safe rule for a farmer to follow is to let no one who is not in perfect health handle his milk. Infectious diseases taper off into slight forms, only recognizable when associated with well- marked cases. Scarlet fever, especially in adults, may produce merely a sore throat, or a blush on the skin which may never be observed. Enteric fever may lurk in what seems to be a simple diarrhoea or weed. . It is not ill-health which has continued for some time, so much as the sudden indisposition which overtakes a previously robust and healthy person, which has to be suspected. V.—Disease in the Cow in relation to Milk. By the Dairies, Cowsheds, and Milkshops' Order, the milk of a diseased cow is forbidden to be mixed with other milk, or sold or used for human food, or given to other animals, unless and until it has been boiled. But this enactment refers only to cattle-plague, pleuro-pneumonia, and foot-and-mouth disease. These are acute diseases which soon stop the flow of milk. Tuberculosis is a more insidious disease which does not do so until it enters on the last stages. Yet the milk is unquestionably unwholesome, and may convey tubercle (the cause of consumption ) to man. Therefore any animal having rapid breathing, a short cough, or emaciation should be examined by a veterinary surgeon ; and the milk of no animal showing signs either of local or constitutional disease should be given to man. A grave suspicion has recently arisen in the minds both of medical men and veterinary surgeons that certain eruptive diseases