, 1908-02-19
THE STATE VETERINARIAN AID.
DRESSES MAYOR AND MEN,
BEERS ON QUESTION OF DA-
Try COW INSPECTION.
Quotes Figures to Show Enormous
Death Rate and Epidemics of Dis.
ease Due to Impure Milk-Ordi-
nance introduced Providing for An
nual Tests Of Dairy Cows Furnish
ing Milk in Laramie.

SAh6 III a SdilSu " OluGl ny hldNUr
Spalding, with Couucilmen Beemer,
Gates, Hansen, Johnson and Solder
strom present, the absent member be.
ing Mr.. Schwatke.
The minutes of the meeting of Feb
ruary 4 read and approved.
The finance committee, by its chair
man, reported that it had examined the
reports of the police Justice, the city
marshal and the sexton for the month
of January, and had found them cor.
rect. The report of the committee was
accepted and ordered placed on file.
State Veterinarian Present.
DR.. William F. Pfaeging of Chey-
enne, the state veterinarian, was pres,
ent and made an address concerning
the a~dvisability of the passage of ar
ordinance providing for the testing OF
cattle for bovine tuberculosis. He read
some statistics prepared in connection
with his duties as the state veterina-
rian. The speaker told of the ease
with which milk may be infected from
the surroundings-flthy mixers, dirty
SohlillSto, III lOltoOIlt lOou lOr llG
cows and careless threatment of the
milk from the time of its drawing to
its consumption. He quoted figures to
show the vast deeth rate among chill.
dren under one year of age.
Should Test Dairy Cows.
The veterinarian urged the testing
of all dairy COWS in the community,
and said that he had appointed DR..
Prien, the university veterinarian, as
the deputy state veterinarian for Lara
mic and vicinity, and that either him
self or his deputy could be gotten to
attend any examination and make it
official. He urged that action be taken,
regardless of cost, as the cost can be
saved hundreds of times over in the
money paid for medicines, physicians,
undertakers n burial grounds. The
following extracts from his long paper
will be of special interest at this time:
Impure Milk and What Causes It.
The quality and wholesomeness OF
milk is a matter Of such fundamental
Importance that surely no Excuse Is
needed for presenting it here. The
enormous extent to which it is used as
a food for children and eve adults;
the extent to which it is used as food
for growing calves and other live
stock; the ease of infection and the fact
that bacteria multiply readily in it;
the comparative ease of producing
wholesome milk and the very grave
dangers from bad milk all emphasize
the vast importance of the subject.
Those who are not working with
these problems do not realize the i'm
portance of milk and its products as a
food material: very few of us realize
actually and clearly the great impor-
lance of having it clean and normal;
few realize how very dirty and unsafe
clean looking milk may be. Some fig,
ures may serve to bring this home.
Epidemics Traced to Milk.
During the last twenty-five years
our medical journals have published
accounts of 1876 typhoid fever epidem-
les, 80 epidemics of scarlet fever, and
Sc of diptheria, which had been traced
to milk supply. Our federal bureau of
public health and marine hospital SER
vice traced IS of S66 typhoid cases in
the District of Columbia to the use o!
milk. Note that this is about 10 per
cent of the total. Approximately one
half of the deaths in children less than
one year of age are due to the CASTRO
enteric diseases, mainly infantile dia-
rhoea; 54,047 deaths among infants
have been traced with reference T.
feeding. OF these Sc per cent had used
artificial foods. Cows milk is the sta
Pile artificial food for infants. This
makes, or seems TO make, out a rather
serious case against milk as a medium
by which the Injurious material was
conveyed. Can the public doubt that
milk or rather those who produce and
handle 1t, must be held responsible for
a serious and useless sacrifice of hu.
man health and life?
Methods of Pollution.
Pollution is general under very com.
mon conditions, and in methods II
milking there is practically always moe
or less pollution. This from
dust in the atmosphere, which may or
NAV not be carrying dangerous bacte-
ria. It may come from dairy COWS; it
may come from dirty hands Of the
mixer, or from the clothing of the
mixer, or from milk utensils that have
rot been properly cleaned. Milk in
transit is exposed to possible multi
~plication Of germs from unclean con-
tanners and high temperatures. Bac-
terra Of innumerable varieties aud
other foreign matter may have bern
left in the vessels from previous use.