TUBERCULOSIS IN MILK.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 224, 22 September 1925, Page 9

TUBERCULOSIS IN MILK.

(To the Editor.; Sir —In view of Dr. Valintine's rejection of the Spahlinger consumption cure it is, of course, the duty of the Health Department to use all other means to safeguard our people from this dread disease which is killing 30 New Zealanders per mc-nth. The health officer's assertion, published on Tuesday, about the high purity of New Zealand milk is not very convincing. Some years ago tests carried out with pigs at a bacon factory showed that where pigs were fed on factory skimmed milk over 50 per cent in some cases became tuberculous, but where the milk was boiled before leaving the factory the disease suddenly vanished. On another occasion Mr. Gilruth, formerly chief veterinarian of the New Zealand Government, in conjunction with the late Dr. Mason, Chief Health Officer, established in a suburb of Wellington, as a private venture, a model dairy factory for .supplying wholesome bottled milk to the city. The cows purchased for that herd were selected by Mr. Gilruth. who was, of course, an expert in judging what looked like a healthy animal. They were then all submitted to the tuberculin test, and, speaking from memory, over one-quarter of them reacted, showing them to be tuberculous. The public, especially the parents of babies, will anxiously desire to know what change, if any, has come over the cows of New Zealand to warrant the Health Department in asserting that New Zealand milk is now so good that there is nothing to justify the Palmerston North alarm. It would be interesting to select half a dozen typical herds, try the tuberculin test, see how many react and slaughter them to confirm. It may be that the milk of diseased cows is itself free from the disease, or that bovine and human tuberculosis differ, but when agonising death for :'>o pei'soivs each month stalks through our bind there is need f«>r something more satisfying than assurances.— 1 am, etc., ARTHUR SAINSBURY.