§ MR. H. H. MARKS (Kent, Thanet)To ask the President of the Local Government Board if, in view of the statement in the Second Interim Report of the Royal Commission appointed to consider the relations of human and animal tuberculosis as to the amount of disease and loss of life, especially among the young, to be attributed to the consumption of cow's milk containing tubercle bacilli, and pending full consideration of the subject, he will consider the advisability of issuing a general order directing that all milk supplied to children in workhouses shall be boiled or sterilised or pasteurised, or subjected to some process approved by the Board, with a view to rendering it free from tuberculous poison.
(Answered by Mr. John Burns.) The dietary order issued by the Local Government Board in 1900 contemplates that young children in a workhouse shall be dieted in accordance with the directions of the medical officer and with careful regard to the requirements of each individual child. In many Poor Law establishments the milk is treated in the manner suggested by the hon. Member; but, looking to the circumstances I have mentioned and also to the division of medical opinion on the question of the best way of dealing with milk 949 for children, I doubt the expediency of issuing a general order on the subject at the present time.