Milk Matters

An educational film about the importance milk meeting health standards.

The milking parlour. Cows are being milked and the film shows the cooling apparatus. This has an obvious leak that becomes more obvious when milk is poured in. An inspector visits the farm. A milkman has set off on his rounds. He is visited by the inspector, who buys a sample of milk for analysis. He pours the milk into a flask to measure the amount, and then into bottles. The bottles are corked and sealed. Back at the laboratory there is an animated sequence showing the correct properties of milk. The milk is tested for fat content and for added water. Later it is tested for bacteria. A time-lapse sequence shows the bacteria growing. In the laboratory the milk is analysed for bacteria. The pasteurisation apparatus is shown and then a sequence showing automatic bottle filling. At the milk depot, milk churns are unloaded and further samples taken. The next sequence in a school shows 245 1/3 pint milk bottles standing in the corridor and then drunk by the schoolchildren. These shots give a good indication of school interiors at the time. Milk Matters. Who pays for all this? asks the caption. The final scene answers the question as a man opening his rates demand.

Intertitles

The next day. How did the Inspector know that there was trouble at the farm? The Inspector buys another sample for preliminary testing. The informal sample is tested for fat and added water. Any added water is found by freezing the milk in this apparatus. If these tests show anything wrong with the milk one of the sealed bottles is sent to the public analyst. But ...There is something else ...Bacteria. No! You cannot see them but we can show that they are there. The milk is diluted and a little is mixed with a jelly. In this jelly, each of the bacteria will feed and grow into a visible colony. After 48 hours. To kill harmful bacteria milk can be pasteurised. Health department officers inspect the plant regularly. And take samples for bacteriological analysis. Who pays for all this? The End.

Background Information

This is a product of a cinematography course at Wansfell, Theydon Bois. This is a story, filmed on location, of a local farm's milk output that did not match the required standard owing to a leak in the cooler