=The Sanitary Code.=—The regulation of the production and delivery of
milk in cities and towns as well as at creameries and cheese factories,
the “Sanitary Code” established by state and municipal health
authorities, has been very effective in improving the quality of the
supply. So enormous have been the improvements in caring for and
handling the products by the large establishments engaged in the
delivery of milk as to make the increase in cost seem trifling compared
with the great benefit to the public health secured by these agencies.
=New York State Milk Grading.=—The New York State Board of Health
prescribes a grading for milk offered for sale, the most important
features of which are as follows:
_Certified._—Must be produced under specially sanitary conditions
approved by a county medical commission.
_Grade A Raw._—Cows must be tuberculin tested and milk must not contain
over 60,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter.
_Grade A Pasteurized._—Cows must be subjected to physical examination
and milk must not contain more than 200,000 bacteria before, nor more
than 30,000 after pasteurization.
Other grades permitted under the rules, all subject to inspection and
approval of the authorities, are:
_Grade B Raw._
_Grade B Pasteurized._
_Grade C Raw._
_Grade C Pasteurized._
Deliveries must be made within a certain time after production or
pasteurization, barns and milk stations are inspected, and altogether
such safeguards are employed as to make the supply exceedingly safe and
reliable.
=City Delivery.=—In villages and small cities the milk supply is still
to a large extent in the hands of farmers who come to town early in the
morning peddling their milk, often at considerable waste of time for
horse and man. Or a number of peddlers go over the same route so that it
takes a dozen wagons to cover a town where three or four could do it.
As long as there was no efficient regulation as to price and quality
such waste was perhaps unavoidable, as competition on the part of the
producers and distributors was the only means of protection for the
consumers. But lately state and municipal control is being exercised to
such an extent as to largely eliminate the danger of poor milk and
exorbitant prices. Further development of organized delivery systems so
much to be desired for sanitary as well as for economical reasons, may
be looked for as soon as normal conditions return after the close of the
war. The delivery of milk is one of the things that in the interest of
public health must be under the strictest official control, and
_co-operation_ between farmers and consumers is the logical system for
elimination of unnecessary expenses of distribution and for prompt and
satisfactory service. Their interests are or should be identical and
both classes are hurt by inefficient and wasteful delivery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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