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202. It is essential that the personnel of a farm where eradica- tion is in progress should be perfectly healthy. A number of cases of tuberculosis of the lungs caused by bovine tubercle bacilli have recently been discovered among persons in attendance on cattle. Reinfection of an accepted herd might readily be brought about through the agency of the sputum of a man so affected.
203. We also recommend that where the owner of an accepted, or supervised, herd is forced to erect an extra fence against the cattle of his neighbour (that neighbour not owning a supervised or accepted herd but being the owner of the boundary fence) he shall be entitled to claim the reasonable cost of such fencing from his neighbour who has failed to fence against his own cattle. This does not refer to any fence that he may erect to prevent contact through, or over, a boundary fence if in a proper state of repair.
204. We also recommend that a clause should be inserted in all contracts for the sale of milk indemnifying the seller if, by reason of his having disposed of diseased cattle on the direction of the veterinary inspector, the quantity of milk delivered falls below the prescribed minimum by an amount not exceeding that yielded by the cows at the time of such disposal.
205. The functions to be performed in England and Wales in regard to eradication by the Ministry of Agriculture should, in Scotland, be performed by the Department of Agriculture for Scotland.
(c) Regulations governing the grading of milk and pasteurisation.
206. Milk grading may be either permissive or compulsory. In Great Britain it is at present permissive. The federal milk ordinance in the United States provides an example of compulsory grading. If the object of grading is to establish a market for special qualities of milk at higher prices than those at which the great bulk of the milk is sold, then permissive grades are likely to be at least as effective as compulsory grades. But if the object of grading is to improve the standard of milk consumed, then this object is likely to be more quickly achieved by the adoption of a system of compul- sory grading. For in this way the comparative advantages of the different grades of milk are brought more directly to the attention of the public. We therefore recommend that all milk sold for consumption in liquid form should be required to be sold under an official designation. The grade of the milk should be clearly marked on the bottle or other vessel in which it is sold to the public, a distinctive colour being prescribed for marking each designated milk. It should be a condition of the sale of any liquid milk that a fixed standard of cleanliness, or pre-pasteurisation standard, should be attained at the farm. This standard should approximate to that at present required for grade A milk, To this recommendation we attach great importance. For we do not believe that the general
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cleanliness of milk would be improved by the proposal contained in a recent scheme to offer a bonus to selected producers, to be known as accredited producers, who attain a standard of cleanliness which is within the reach of, and should be made compulsory on, all producers. In addition to attaining this standard of cleanliness on the farm, all milk sold for liquid consumption should conform to one or other of the designations which we recommend.
207. The four following designations alone should be recognised in place of those already existing :-
(i) Certified milk, namely milk which has not undergone any process of heat treatment and is derived from tuberculosis- free herds. These are either herds accepted under the eradication scheme described in the preceding sub-section, or herds which have been accepted up to the time of the preceding test provided in the latter case that (a) all reacting cattle had been removed from the herd immediately after the test, and (b) the immediately preceding test had been completed not more than ninety days before the date of production of the milk sold as certified. This milk should not be required to be bottled on the farm.
(ii) Pasteurised milk, namely milk which has undergone once only a process of heat-treatment approved for this purpose by the Ministry of Health and in Scotland by the Depart- ment of Health for Scotland, and has undergone no other process of heat-treatment. Pasteurisation should be permitted only in a plant licensed for the purpose.
(iii) Sterilised milk, namely milk which has been raised to the boiling point or higher* in a plant licensed for the purpose and which has undergone no other process of heat- treatment.
(iv) Milk (uncertified), namely milk which has undergone no form of heat-treatment, and is not derived from tuberculosis- free herds, but which attains a certain hygienic standard. We exclude from our definition of certified milk any requirement that it should be bottled on the farm, on the ground that this is a provision of only secondary importance to public health, but one which adds materially to the costs of production. Our major concern is to provide a grade of raw milk which is reasonably safe and at the same time not beyond the means of the consuming public.
208. We further recommend that no milk which has been held in any vessel containing more than 100 gallons of milk unless derived from a single herd should be sold for consumption in liquid form unless it has subsequently been pasteurised.t
*
In some modern plants, the temperature is raised to 224° F. The bulking of milk in smaller quantities may, indeed, be dangerous, especially if the vessel used is not sterilised before further milk is added to
it each time milk is removed from it. In addition, any bulking which has the effect of confusing the milk from one farm with that of another makes the identification of the source of disease more difficult.
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