1890s

Milk was known to be a fertile ground for microbes. Microbes were associated with typhoid, scarlet fever, dipheria, and cholera infant. In 1891, 240 per 1,000 infants died in NYC from cholera infants. Many of these deaths were believed to be due to tainted milk. 10% of milk examined by Philadelphia’s milk inspector during July and August of 1891 was disposed because it was adulterated by additives or diluted with water. The sanitary standards of the cows and farms where milk production occurred were abysmal. Most milk producers at the time had filthy barns, cows were fed swill left over from whiskey distillation. In 1895 a study found that 1/4 of 165 herds examined in 17 states harbored tuberculosis. On farms, the same pails that were used to collect milk from the cows was used to carry slop to the pigs.

Spurred by the initial success of sanitary reforms in limiting the spread of cholera, cities later used dramatic advances in bacteriology following Robert Koch’s 1882 identification of the tubercle bacillus to bring more and more areas of city life under their purview. A new class of professionals trained in the latest techniques of chemistry, engineering, and medicine established regulations governing the production and distribution of meat and milk, tenement construction, garbage collection, private and public privies, and water supplies.⁸ Enforcement in all of these areas remained patchy, however, and officials often encountered opposition from private citizens who resented government intrusion into their lives, as well as from businessmen who viewed health regulations as interference with commerce.⁹

Thus, disease outbreaks continued from time-to-time, and the opportunistic vaccine industry would claim to have the cure, but as pointed out in the Wickedpedia article on vaccines, they have never actually cured any disease and is a faulty science.