MILK PASTEURISATION

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 89, 11 January 1923, Page 4

MILK PASTEURISATION

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN SUPPORTERS

DISCUSSION AT NATIONAL CONFERENCE

The National Milk Conference recently spent an interesting morning in discussing pasteurisation and other methods of treating milk. There wai considerable opjxisition to the advocates of pasteurisation on the ground that raw milk possessed valuable qualities which were destroyed by boiling it. The value >of dried milk was discussed, and several eminent doctors spoke from long experience in favour of dried milk, emphasising the fact that it w r as more easily protected from contamination than wet milk. This view naturally did not commend itself to the whole conference.

Dr. Georges Dreyer, Professor of Pathology at Oxford, said there were man.v reasons why we should go to the trouble of treating milk instead of using it as it came from the cow. The first was that in this country, as in many other countries, we were centuries behind in regard to cleanliness. The number of microbes which milk might contain varied from a few thousands to many millions per cubic centigramme. These bacteria got into the milk in various wavs from the cow itself, from the milkers’ hands, from tlio air, and last, but not least, from the containers used for the milk. There was not sufficient knowledge as to the keeping of such containers clean from a bacteriological point of view. The most important bacteria that had to be dealt with were the microbes that caused diseases in man. In the first five years of life thers was a higher death-rate from-tuber-culosis than in any subsequent fiveyear period. He did not say that all these'cases were caused by bovine tubercle bacilli, but there was a very great percentage. It was so, high a percentage that in his opinion it would not only be folly, but criminal folly, to neglect it. Whatever was done from the point of view of cleanliness it was necessary, he said, that the price of the milk should not go beyond a certain figure. High-grade milk would not reach the large masses of poor children in the country if the price- was prohibitive. Dried milk could reach the big itwiustrial centres and supply a good substitute for the fresh milk. It would be better for children to be fed on a good quality dried milk than that they should have no milk at all or very little, .or what they did have not good fresh milk. Dr. Charles E. North, of New lork, said infections of the udder in dairy cows constituted bv far the most serious menace to the public health, originating from dairy cattle. Tb 4 appreciation of the public health value of pasteurisation had become so great in the United States and. Canada that it was fair io say that in all of the larger cities at least 99 per cent, of the~ milk was nasteurised. The special virtue which raw milk was supposed to possess had proved to be chimerical. No Injury by Sterilisation.

Dr. Eric Pritchard, who opened the discussion, said that the food value of milk was not altered in the slightest degree by heating or sterilisation. He hoped that from the conference .there would go forth a definite expression of opinion to the effect that there, were definite dangers in the consumption or raw milk from the point of view of infants and children, and that those dangers could be definitely remdved by the application of heat to the raw article. Mrs. Straus, on behalf of Dr. Nathan Straus, former president of the Department of Health in New York, read a statement which said that to destroy Hie dangerous micro-organisms m milk required the retaining of the milk tor 25 mintues at a temperature of 145 to'l6o degrees Fahrenheit. Existing facilities prevented the production of a safe raw milk. Even the certified grade A quality, of which only a negligible quantity at an enormous price was on the market, was not beyond exposure to infection. Dirty milk was not merely dangerous, but was actually the cause vear by year of a large amount of ill-health and deformities and of a large number of deaths. ->o system of inspection could prevent'this. Pedigree herds of dairy cattle frequently suffered from tuberculosis. Testing at three or six, months interval would not render impossible contamination ot the milk bv the tubercle bacillus. For the evils there was no other remedy in sight than the enforcing of real pasteurisation of all milk. Mr. Straus, who also snoke, declared that pasteurisation would result in a great saving in hospital expenses. Mr. Tustin, formerly chairman of the Milk Control Board of Capacla during the war. mentioned that in AAmnine., the introduction of. pasteurised mdk caused « reduction in the death rate among children under " year old from 212 per thousand to 89 per thousand in four vears. ~ Dr R Shen house AAdhams said it was’ a matter for considerid’pn whether the pasterisation of milk vould not lead to an increase in nutritional diseases.