The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-22
AWFUL OUTLOOK FOR INFANT MORTALITY Health Officer Hardness Sounds
 Note of Warning BE CAREFUL ABOUT FOOD Milk Cuts an Important Figure and Necessity of Having Pure Sup
 ply Cannot Be Over
 estimated.
BE CAREFUL ABOUT FOOD

 that of City Health Officer Dr. R. B. Hardness for the month of April. It contains much valuable information and is given below in full
 I beg to submit my report for the month of April, 1909. The only matters of special interest during the month were the occurrence of an unusual number of cases of scarlet fever for this season of the year, and a very heavy death rate among infants from acute intestinal dis orders.
 There were reported during the month B cases of scarlet fever, five of these occurring in one household, where two families were crowded in a small build ing, making isolation impossible Prac- tically all the others occurred in a re- strieted district inhabited largely by Rus sian Jews. among whom the health laws are subject to fragrant violation. There was undoubtedly frequent visiting of ln- feeted houses, hence the spread of the disease. Such occurrences should cause this community to realize the necessity for an isolation hospital; this has been urged repeatedly during the past four years by your health officer, who is ex- perieneing more and more difficulty as our population grows in maintaining suit able private quarantine. Unless better provision Is made for the isolation of in feetious diseases we will some day find ourselves in the midst of a disastrous epidemic.
 Deaths, infants under years of age, from acute intestinal disorders: April. 1905, none; April, 1906, none; April, 1907, 8; April, 1908, ?; April 1909 8.
 If the past month Is an index to what the coming summer will be. this will be the most disastrous year we have ever had in regard to high infant mortality. just what factors are responsible for this excessively high infant mortality in April 1t would be hard to say; at any rate. 1t behooves every one who has chil- dren to exercise every precaution against such disasters as have overtalxen many during the past month. Do not overfeed your child. If you cannot get clean milk, boil such milk as you give it. Keep your babies in the fresh air and sunshine as much as possible. When the child shows any indisposition immediately stop all food until you can communicate with your physician. We know from the ex- perience of other cities that much can be done toward keeping down the infant mortality by improving the milk supply, and Birmingham should leave no stone unturned in the effort to secure a milk supply that shall be second to none in purity. Below I quote at length from the ,n.-f Af obi Af .f .I,s.,, I'll United States bureau of animal industry:
 Milk properly drawn from healthy cows in clean surroundings, handled in a sanitary manner and delivered to the customer in comparatively short time is free from disease-producing organisms, and Is ideal as a food Bacteriology teaches that every particle of dirt, whether it seems to the eye source of contamination or not carries with 1t great number of bacteria, and that milk at or dinary temperature, 65 to 100 degrees Fah., Is excellent medium for their growth, and most of the changes that take place in milk can be traced di- rectly to such action. Neither straining or clarifying will remove the bacteria from milk, hence the necessity of keeping the dirt out, not straining it out. Con- tamination usually begins with the act of milking. If the udder and Hanks of the 1o" aiC SONCACd WllI LiIc QlIl Ol lHe yHIQ or stable the process of milking will dis lodge a greater or less proportion of this filth, causing it to fall into the pail The average weight of dirt which falls from muddy udders during milking is 90 times as great as that which falls from the same udders after washing An aver age of 13 experiments showed the fol- lowing results:
 Bacteria in milk from unwiped ud-
 Ha,c, Bacteria in milk from wiped udders
 per centimeter .................... 716
 Decrease due to wlping ..... 6342
 ''The milker may not be cleanly In per son or dress, he may have that most filthy of habits, milking with wet hands. the hands are usually wet by milking a few streams over them and kept wet by repeating the operation from time to time The filth on the udder will oooze out un- der and through the fingers and drip into the pail. Mixers too often wear clothing that has done duty for every other work about the farm. Such clothing may contain dirt from the hog pen the chicken coop, the horse barn, or the swili barrel, and Is entirely unfit to be worn during milking. A clean white milk ing suit has a two-fold effect; it will not of itself contanimate the milk, and if the milker is required to keep such a clean suit. he must of necessity keep every thing with which he comes in contact clean.
 "Education must go first and the police authority should be used only in cases where the dairyman persits In wilfullv disregarding sanitation when he knows better. But little improvement will come through regulations requiring clean cows. clean milkers and clean methods of milk ing, and of handling the milk, unless the dairyman understands the objects of such regulation, and the effect they will have on his work The officers In, charge of inspection must be teachers first and po- lcemen only when they find that the dairyman will not live up to the instruc- tions given him and his knowledge of what Is right. Rules and regulations in- tended to correct evils often fail in their purpose because of injudicious administra- ton on the part of health officers but more often from the fact that man who Is by nature filthy In bis habits cannot be legislated Into cleanliness. If he Is will ing to drink at his own table milk which only a little COW dung, he takes it as an infringement of his personal rights and liberties if the authoritines at tempt to compel him to keep such ma terial out of the milk that goes to his neighbor
 .F'or an efficient system of dairy in- spection there should be a chief inspec- tor to supervise the work, and he should be responsible to the health officer The health officer or board of health should have full power to make rules and reg ulations. and enforce the same so as to the health of the community from contaminated milk supply through either carelessness, ignorance or malici- ous intent" Communicable diseases reported during April 1909: