The press THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 1943. Milk

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23845, 14 January 1943, Page 2

The press THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 1943. Milk

A review of Professor J. R. Marrack’s book, “ Food and Planning,” on this page to-day, is of necessity brief: too brief for an adequate estimate of its importance, whether to the consumer and to the politicians and officials who regulate his consumption or to the primary producer and to the politicians and officials who regulate his livelihood. It must suffice to add here, for the present, that this book is a valuable one, in part, because it is bold enough to march to an obvious but neglected end in the reconciliation of producer and consumer interests. Those are not impossible policies to devise and apply, through which the producer will prosper by producing all he can and the consumer thrive by consuming all he should. But at a time when the zoning of milk deliveries and the argument about it and evidence educed and emphasised by it have again moved the Christchurch City Council and its milk committee and the public to think about the standards of the Christchurch supply, it may be useful to cite Professor Marrack on one point. Representatives of producing and vending interests have endeavoured to persuade the public that pasteurised milk is inferior milk because it is pasteurised; councillors have made a virtue of upholding the virtues of the Christchurch supply and of upholding the consumer’s right to choose raw milk, which he thinks is good, and to reject pasteurised, which he thinks is bad. This is what Professor Marrack says:

Cows infected with tuberculosis can be detected by the tuberculin test and killed off, and this is.in the long run an economy to the farmer, as tuberculous cows are poor milkers; but cows infected with Bacillus abortus cannot be eliminated in this way. •Milk from tuberculin-tested cows may still contain Bacillus abortus from the cow or bacteria from other sources. Such milk may appear clean and wholesome. As things are. all milk should be pasteurised, besides being handled with the maximum possible attention to cleanliness. Milk that has been pasteurised efficiently can be guaranteed not to contain living tubercle or abortus baccilli. . . . Some vitamin C may be destroyed in the process of pasteurisation: but as cow’s milk contains little vitamin C anyhow, the loss is not important. Otherwise, the nutritive value is not impaired. Experiments have been made on rats, calves, and children; all grew as well on pasteurised as on raw milk. It is more necessary to emphasise this than to comment on it. On the general question of the nutritional value of pasteurised milk, the results of the most recent investigations, summarised in “ Nutrition “ Abstracts and Reviews,” have previously been quoted here; Professor Marrack endorses them. Attention may be directed, however, to other points: that pasteurisation must be “efficient”; that it is not a substitute for other standards of quality and safety, but an additional and essential precaution; and that milk is not necessarily safe if produced from tuberculin-tested cows. Christchurch will have a qualitatively good and hygienically safe supply if and when the conditions of production and distribution are all brought under sufficient and strict control. This is not so now. But the fault is by no means wholly that of the Christchurch City Council. The Department of Agriculture, upon which responsibility should largely fall, is organised and empowered principally to serve producer interests and those of the export industries. It cannot enforce tuberculin testing; it cannot make sure that only efficient pasteurising plants and processes are used; it cannot prevent the collection and processing of stale milk. The Health Department is insufficiently authorised and staffed to do its full duty. The municipal authorities find their rights of inspection and control cut off at their boundaries. They could do more within them. When the Christchurch City Council again comes to consider what more it can do and must do, it will find no solution of the problem short of municipalisation.