"THE DANGERS OF STERILISED MILK"

Evening Star, Issue 15479, 29 April 1914, Page 5

"THE DANGERS OF STERILISED MILK"

The following letter appears in the ‘ Lancet ’ :

Sir, —The line printed above this is the heading of an important article in ‘ The Times’ of December 29, in which Mr Robert Mond had a good deal to say against the practice of sterilising the cow’s milk on which children are fed. The heading may possibly have surprised or even alarmed some people, others it may have pulled up short and caused them to think, for sterilisation of children’s milk is still widely believed in as necessary. It is, indeed, part of the ritual of most nurseries.

The question of the expediency or the necessity of the practice, however, cannot conveniently be entered into by medical men in the public Press (though I, for one, am grateful to ‘ The Times ’ for bringing the matter forward, as well as for the way in which it has been done), and I hope that the ‘ Lancet ’ will be inclined to open its columns to a discussion on the subject. I do not know when the sterilisation of nursery milk yas first advised, but it is easy to see how it came about. Thus, cows are liable to tuberculosis; milk from a tuberculous cow may give rise to tuberculosis in the human subiect; the germs of tuberculosis are killed by a heat somewhat below that of boiling water; children may be fed on milk thus treated without risk of their being infected with the germs of tuberculosis, even if the milk he drawn from tuberculous cows. It is very simple and attractive. r But we do not yet know for certain ■that milk from a tuberculous cow will infect a human being Mr Mond says that children have been reared on unsterilised milk from cows which have afterwards been found to be tuberculous, and have been none the worse for it. He also reminds us that our post mortem records reveal the fact that tuberculous children are infected by the air passages rather than by the stomach or bowel. He also ■tells of certain kittens which, being fed wholly on sterilised cow’s milk, died miserably; whilst others, used as a control and fed on plain cow’s milk, grew up and flourished. This was a valuable vivisection experiment, and it is to be hoped that by planning it and seeing it carried out Mr Mond will not have attracted the suspicion of violence of any of his friends.

Of the biochemistry of the sterilisation of milk I am not competent to speak, but I do know this : that during the process it has been strangely altered, for its taste is quite different. _ The milk has been changed from a living fluid to a dead one. To the adult this may not signify much, bub for the child it may make all the difference, the milk having lost its living spirit. What exactly this living spirit of milk may be the chemist is unable to tell us. At any rate, he cannot separate it in his test-tube nor weigh it in _ his most delicate balance. Yet it exists. Perhaps the physiologist, who is leas of a materialist, can make a guess as to its nature. Otherwise it must be left to the medical man to predict concerning it. My own opinion is that sterilisation renders cow’s milk unsuitable as a, food for young .children. I am half inclined, indeed, to use the word dangerous. I have closely watched infants whose only food, has been sterilised cow’s milk, and Shave found many of them poor and illnourished, and just in the condition to fall victim's to tuberculosis. Later on I have detected in them the early signs of rickets. In others I have found the tender bones and the spongy or bleeding gums of scurvy. But as soon as the sterilisation of the milk was stopped improvement set in and was continued.—l am, etc., , Edmund Owbn, Consulting Surgeon to the Hospital for Sick Children. Great Ormond street, W.C. A railway 60 miles in length is to be constructed in the south of Iceland.