MILK IN SCHOOLS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20095, 15 November 1939, Page 6

MILK IN SCHOOLS

UNDOUBTED SUCCESS CONTINUANCE ASSURED DR. H. M. WATT’S VIEWS ”I£ any milk consumed in New Zealand- is pure and wholesome, it is the milk distributed in the schools under the Health Department’s system. The milk must come in the first place from herds completely free from infection, and at every stage of its preparation for consumption the most rigid safeguards are employed,” said Dr. M. H. Watt, Director-General of Health, in answer to a pressman who to-day raised with him the question of the continuance of the milk-in-schools system.

The director-general, who arrived in Gisborne last evening and spent part of to-day inspecting the Cook Hospital and other institutions in. which the Health Department is closely interested, is engaged in a tour of the hospital districts of the North Island, and will proceed from Gisborne to Te Puia, and thence onward to Te Araroa and Opotiki, using the new East Coast main highway. Discussing the school distribution of milk, lie stated that some scholars had been found to object to the taste of tire milk, this being due, probably to the fact that it was pasteurised. There could hardly be any possibility of miik reaching the children in a condition other than wholesome, and he considered that where teachers encouraged the ichildren to drink it, refusals would be reduced to a minimum.

Improving Milk Consumption

“There is no doubt that the milk consumption per head in New Zealand is below what it should be,” he stated, "and the milk-in-schools scheme was calculated to repair this lack, especially in the cases of children who do no{ receive adequate supplies of mdk at home. There is nothing unwholesome about the taste, so far as frequent tests have shown, but there is probably a slight difference from what the children are accustomed to in their home supplies. That would be accounted for by the fact that home supplies are not generally pasteurised, whereas milk supplied to schools is pasteurised.” Dr. Watt mentioned that in the United Stafes, pasteurisation of milk supplies recently had been recognised as standard practice for urban areas.

As a result disease outbreaks attributable to milk supplies had been almost eradicated. In the American cities milk was handled mainly by large concerns, and bulk supplies were brought from great distances, these factors rendering control and pasteurisation more readily practicable.