PASTEURISING MILK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18750, 2 January 1923, Page 8

PASTEURISING MILK

THE WAY TO A SAFE SUPPLY. Professor Henry Kenwood. Chadwick Professor of Hygiene and Public Health.in the University of London, in the course of a recent, lecture strongly advocated the oasteurisation of milk ns tho only practical means of securing a safe milk supply. We shall not, he declared, obtain clean milk by our present methods, which have failed. H was important also that, whatever was done, (he amount of this uniquely valuable and vulnerable article of food supply must not be reduced, but rather increased, and that there must be nothing but a slight increase in its cost. Did pasteurisation of fresh milk afford the best solution of the problem, at least for the meantime? Pasteurisation by tho trade is a growing practice in Great Britain. About 60 percent, of tho entire public milk supply of London, is now so treated. In New York and some dozen of the large American cities with populations of over 100,000 no other milk save “graded’’ milk is \ permitted to Ire sold, and the Imperial Government in its recent Milk Act recognised pasteurisation as a method which confers safety when it 13 earned out under standardised conditions. It might be accepted on scientific ground* ttiat efficient pasteurisation of milk retards its souring from 12, to_ 24 hours; that it need not-alter the physical qualities of the milk or its digestibility; that it is capable of destroying those germs of human diseases (including tuberculosis) which are known to be at times conveyed in milk. A clean milk supply is not the complete solution of lire problem of safe milk. If the risk from tuberculosis is to be removed, the milk must also be obtained from healthy animals. Tho “grading” of milk was useful as an object lesson to producers,, traders, and the public alike of the defects and deficiencies of tho ungraded raw article; but the bulk of the trade cannot supply it and the bulk of the people cannot purchase it. Trade pasteurisation of milk was adopted from commercial considerations. It was being made increasingly efficient, and it constitutes a valuable protection to the public —more particularly to the infants. The acid test of efficiency of this process is the removal of the risk from tuberculosis. He would like to see it increased, and (taking the lead from America) ultimately made compulsory in largo towns. But when trade pasteurisation was officially recognised or made compulsory in large towns certain conditions would have to be imposed upon the trade. Those wore indicated by the lecturer, who. in conclusion, gave a brief survey of the growth of heated milk and of medical opinion in favour of it. He was satisfied that pasteurisation of tho present-day public milk supply points the path of safety and cf wisdom, and he did not see why this should prejudice the campaign for dean milk. The trade only pasteurises the milk which would otherwise he sold as raw; and (he cleaner the milk the better it tastes and tho longer it keeps after pasteurisation.