DAIRY RESEARCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23542, 4 July 1938, Page 10

DAIRY RESEARCH

WORK IN ENGLAND REPORT BY COUNCIL (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, June 11. Programmes of research of the two National Institutes for research in dairying in England and Scotland, at Shinfield, near Reading, and at Kirkhill. near Ayr, and the work relating to dairy research carried out by the Division of Bacteriology and Immunology of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, by the Glasgow and Edinburgh Colleges of Agriculture, and in the laboratories of United Dairies, Limited, are reported upon by the Agricultural Research Council in a publication issued this week. The report records the urgent need for more knowledge concerning the physiology of lactation, and about the influence of hormones and their relation to milk quality, and indicates that the way is being prepared for an attack on this subject. The possibility of reducing present-day food protein standards for milk production is being tested in co-operation with many farmers.

Experiments have been earned out in Great Britain on the control of diseases, such as bovine tuberculosis, contagious abortion and mastitis, by approved methods of diagnosis and treatment. The Hannah Dairy Research Institute in Scotland showed from an experiment which lasted four years, that 20 out of the 30 herds which were under control had been cleared ot tuberculosis. This demonstration led to vhe voluntary spread of the eradication movement on a remarkable scale.

Of particular interest are the results reported from three senaratc centres of experiments designed to ascertain the relative value of raw and pasteurised milk for calves. Confirmatory results were obtained by each centre working independently and showed no significant differences in the effect of the two types of milk, cither on growth rate or on the condition of the calves at the end of the experiment. But in postmortem examination none of the calves fed on pasteurised milk showeci tuberculosis lesions, while lesions were found in 65 per cent, of those fed on raw milk.

A method, called the phosphatese test, has been evolved by workers at the Shinfield Institute for determining the efficiency of the process of pasteurisation, and this has proved a valuable aid in the supex’vision of pasteurising machinery. Work on the nutritive value of processed milks in comparison with that of the raw milk is now in progress at the institute. NEW KNOWLEDGE

New knowledge is being gained about the factors governing the production of desirable market quantities in milk pro ducts, such as body, flavour and keeping qualities in cheese, butter and cream, and about the best methods ot manufacturing dried milk and canned milk products. Since milk in itself is such a favourable medium for the growth and multiplication of bacteria, the study of the organisms wh'ch it contains and of the part which each group plays must natui’ally receive much attention. Bacteriologists at all centres ot research are. therefore, engaged in study ing the different types of bacteria and determining their source of origin Not all organisms are harmful: some are beneficial as. for example, the lactic acid bacteria which are responsible for good flavour in cheese. A chapter is devoted to the scientific work which influenced the framing of the recently-revised Milk Designations Order, and another chapter gives an interesting account of the work of advisory dairy bacteriologists, who assist farmers and others interested in facing the problems of bactexdal infection and the improvement of farm hygiene.