Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1899.

  • West Ham (London, England). County Borough.
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1899. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/270 (page 27)
    27 It might be thought that Tubercular disease would be more common in town cowsheds than in those of the country districts, but this is not so. Indeed, it has been shown in the case of Liverpool, that Tubercule was found twice as often in samples of milk coming from the country, as in samples from the town. As a result of the special examination above detailed, the London County Council approached the Sanitary Authorities of the Home Counties with the request whether, if examination should show that milk sent to London from your district is Tuberculous, your Council would be willing to supply the London County Council with information and veterinary reports respecting the condition of the cows, byres, etc., whence such milk is drawn. This question your Council answered in the affirmative, thereby voluntarily adopting the course which would become compulsory should legislation follow the recommendations of Paragraph 14 of the Report of the Royal Commission. In the interests of Public Health, however, I am of opinion that the Council would be wise to adopt more active measures, on the lines of the London County Council. I propose, with the Council's permission, to take periodical samples for submission to the Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine, both of our own supply and of that which comes from the country. In addition, I recommend the Council to arrange with the Veterinary Inspector to inspect quarterly the cows of the Borough with a view to ascertaining the presence of Tubercular disease of the udder. The cost of this would be small indeed when compared with the advantages to be obtained. The Royal Commission found that The milk from cows with Tuberculosis of the udder possesses a virulence which can only be described as extraordinary, and as it is patent that the milk of the cows in our district is chiefly distributed to our own population, each focus of infection discovered will be fraught with direct sanitary gain. In this connection another preventive measure may be considered, namely, the sterilization of our own milk supply. The Council is now supplying the Plaistow Hospital, and will doubtless supply the