in unventilated sheds and surrounded by insanitary influences of all sorts." The Commission reported that, "the state of the byres of Calcutta affords the best illustration possible of the evil effects of crowding. When disease enters these sheds or byres, it does not. leave a single susceptible animal unattacked, dairy cattle are kept pent up closely in confined sheds, and the stock is periodically renewed, and if a new purchase brings disease, it spreads unfailingly among the rest. The Commissioners might have added that when disease once enters such a byre it never leaves it, but remains lurking in the soil, in the walls, and in the very atmosphere, waiting the entrance of new victims; for Dr. Hiram Farrell, M. R. C. V. S., says: "The disease is highly infectious and contagious; the virus can be transmitted in various ways. The excrement which drops from a diseased animal is highly charged with the poison; in fact the very air in the neighbourhood of cattle-sheds with infected animals is poisoned." Now we know as a fact that when the disease has been present in these byres, even though the owner may have lost half his stock, he makes no attempt to disinfect the place; how could he indeed-for nothing short of burning down the filthy sheds and digging out the foundations, could ever disinfect such a thoroughly corrupted mass.

A significant proof under the author's own observation that the gowalla sheds are foci of cattle-disease is given by the fact, that of a large number of municipal cattle attacked with cattle-disease during 1878 and 1879, only those working in the gowalla quarters suffered, while others working in other parts of the town were exempt.

We now come to the important question of the milk

Unwholesome Milk-supply.

67

supply derived from cattle kept under these conditions, and it must be admitted that, in a country like India, where milk forms an important item in the food, not only of the infant, but of the adult population, this is one involving sanitary and economic considerations of the highest importance; that the health of the cattle kept pent up in close cow-stables is largely affected by the keeping of dung in about the stables, is clearly shown by the result of investigations made by Dr. Ballard during an epidemic of cattle-disease near London. It was found that only eight out of thirty-one stables inspected, in which dung or urine was not stored, had had cases of disease, whilst eight out of eleven in which dung was stored, had the disease; and on another occasion, cattle-plague was found in 66 per cent of the sheds in which dung was not stored, and 91 per cent in those in which it was kept.

How much of the preventible sickness and mortality in our towns might not, with some reason, be attributed to the unwholesomeness of the milk-supply resulting from the filthiness of the cowhouses and their surroundings, and the carelessness and malpractices of the milkmen, is a question which merits serious consideration on the part of our officers of health and sanitary officials. Medical testimony at home and in America is almost unanimous on this subject, and it requires no medical knowledge or training to understand that the state of filth in which the cows are kept, the prevalence of disease amongst them and their attendants, the filthy and unnatural means by which it is well-known they are forced to yield their milk in increased quantities, the foul atmosphere of the sheds where the milk is

68

Milk as a carrier of Disease.

drawn and often allowed to stand, and last, but not least, the extent to which, and the sources from which, the milk is diluted and adulterated before reaching the consumer, are all conditions incompatible with a pure or wholesome supply.

It is well-known that milk is more easily tainted than any other liquid by smoke, gases, and foul odours, and a familiar illustration will present itself to many of my readers who must have occasionally observed, that milk, which has been kept standing in a cook-room where native servants have been smoking the hookah, has attracted and absorbed the tobacco smoke to such a degree as to make it undrinkable even in 'tea.' Milk exposed to the vapour of carbolic acid or kreosote will soon taste strongly of those substances, and if kept in any badly-ventilated place or exposed to sewer or drain emanations, will rapidly become tainted and unfit for use. A recent sanitary writer says: The great danger attaching to milk as a carrier of disease, depends upon its remarkable powers of absorption, and the rapid fermentive or zymotic changes it undergoes when it becomes mixed with putrefying matter or tainted with disease germs."— Wilson.

Parkes says, that milk from diseased animals soon decomposes; and Wilson states, that the milk of animals suffering from foot and mouth disease (epizootic aphtho) produces aphthous ulceration of the mouth and gums, with swelling of the tongue and great fœtor of the breath. Mr. Power considers that garget, a wellknown and commoù affection of the udder of the cow, will so change the character of the milk that the partaking of it induced diphtheria in the human subject.

Now it will be apparent from the foregoing description of the native cowhouses that every element of pollution exists in its most aggravated form, and that in fact it is impossible for untainted milk to come from such sources. But the greatest danger to the consumer undoubtedly exists in the extent and manner in which the milk is diluted and adulterated before sale. I have had it on evidence before myself in a judicial proceeding that the witness, a milkman, having a large and respectable circle of customers, and who, therefore, claimed to sell quite a superior quality of milk, invariably added at least three seers of water to every nine seers of milk, and several milkmen admitted that they not only watered their milk freely, but added to it without scruple the milk from diseased cows, so long as they continued to give down their milk at all.

Hurro Chunder Sen, a gowalla witness, examined before the Cattle Plague Commissioners, stated: "We sell milk in Calcutta, and before selling, add as much water as there is milk. Lall Chand Marik, another witness, said: "Those milksellers to whom I sell my milk, water it, and in order to thicken it, mix with it singhara-nut* flour; the milkmen add water to the milk as long as they can without changing the color." Dr. Tonnerre, Health Officer of Calcutta, says: "The milk is largely adulterated by the addition of chalk, rice fecula, and more or less impure and filthy water.'

This depreciation in the nourishing constituents of food is alone a serious consideration, but the real danger lies in the source from which the water, which admittedly

* The water chestnut Trapa bicornis.

70

Source of Aqueous Adulteration.

forms from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of the fluid sold as milk in our towns, is drawn. If the milkman be asked where he takes his water for general use from, he will usually point to the adjacent tank; but if his suspicions be aroused as to the object of the question, he will probably name some well-known and tolerably pure reservoir, or if in the Calcutta suburbs, he will tell you he fetches it from the Calcutta water-supply hydrants; but will any one believe that the milkman, whose conscience is so lax as to permit him to impose upon his customers to such an extent, will be so scrupulous as to the source from whence the adulterating medium is obtained.// Can we believe for a moment that he will be so considerate of the public welfare as to go out of his way, transgress the tradition of the elders, and actually go to expense and trouble to procure filtered water with which to carry out his nefarious practices, when the tank is within two steps of his cowhouse door? Credat Judaeus Apella !/The water of the tank, when the surface scum is swept aside, though laden with sewage constituents, is passably clear. It will in no way discolor the milk when judiciously added, it will not perceptibly taint it before sale, and it is close at hand. What cares he that his cowhouse drains into it that as a Sanitary Commissioner lately reported: "The banks are loaded with dung in every stage of decomposition; that his house sink soaks into the bank; that his own and his neighbours' privies stand close to the margin; that the children openly and habitually, and adults very frequently, defecate on the slopes; that the whole surrounding population bathe and invariably urinate in its waters whilst bathing. He cares for none of these