[Report 1904] / Medical Officer of Health, Colchester Borough.

Colchester (England). Borough Council.

Date:: 1904

Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1904] / Medical Officer of Health, Colchester Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

18/34 (page 16)

THE MILK SUPPLY OF COLCHESTER. The condition of the milk supply of a town is a matter of supreme importance. Milk is very readily contaminated, and harmful germs will grow in it with great facility. Such milk when consumed may be a source of much harm, especially to infants and young children. Recently a number of outbreaks of Sore Throat have been traced to infected milk. It is most important therefore to see that the conditions under which it is obtained and distributed, are such as to diminish as much as possible the risk of harmful contamination. I have therefore made a special and extensive inquiry into the whole question of the milk supply of the Borough, visiting personally, accompanied by Mr. Wells, your Inspector of Dairies, Cowsheds, and Milk Shops, every cowshed in the Borough and a large proportion of the dairies and other shops where milk is sold. The rest of the dairies and shops purveying milk were visited by Mr. Wells and specially reported upon to me. All the visits were made between May and August, 1904. As far as I am aware Colchester is almost unique as a Borough in that the great bulk of the milk consumed is from cowsheds situated within the Borough. Cowsheds, purveyors and con- sumers are all under the same Sanitary Authority. A small part of the milk consumed comes in from outside the Borough, a little of the milk from cowsheds within the Borough is sent outside, but the great bulk of the milk is milked and consumed within the Borough boundaries. This enables much better supervision to be exercised. The milk is vended in three different ways. (1) By the dairies and milk shops, which for the most part only sell milk, butter, and other dairy products. (2) By general dealers, who also sell milk. (3) By purveyors of milk alone. These have no proper dairy, and no place were milk can be sold over the counter, but buy the milk direct from the farmers and at once distribute it. General Dealers. At the time of the inquiry there were 37 such milk sellers registered. They are for the most part small general provision shops, selling only small quantities of milk, very rarely more than 3-4 gallons a day. Most of them receive their milk twice a day. In only a very few of the shops were markedly objectionable substances, paraflBji, fish, etc., also sold. Generally the milk is at once placed in the counter pan of metal or earthenware, in the shop, and sold during the day. Such pans I have usually found to be clean, but in no instance did I find them covered. In this way dust and dirt are certain to gain access to the milk, and the milk becomes contaminated. Such shops always have a dusty atmosphere. Hot only is this the case, but flies, great carriers of filth and infective matters, gain access to the milk and give it another dose of filth. In this way the causal organisms of infantile Diarrhoea and other diseases may gain access to to milk just as they may do, in the house of the consumer, so that an infant consuming such milk runs a double risk, risk of pollution at the shop, as well as risk of pollution in the house. Some of these shops were kept in a cleanly way, others by no means so. I think that a byelaw under section 13 of the Dairies, Cowsheds, and Milkshops Order, 1895, should be made enforcing the covering of all milk vessels by all retail milk sellers. Possibly, however. No. 8 of the Regulations passed by you is sufficient for this purpose. Dairies and Milkshops. There were nine such dairies, and in these the conditions under which the milk was sold were much better. The dairies were on the whole clean and well ventilated, while the milk utensils were properly cleaned. The milk was, however, sold in uncovered vessels. For the most part these dairies had large milk rounds and dealt with large quantities of milk.