MUNICIPAL MILK.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2121, 2 July 1907, Page 3

MUNICIPAL MILK.

DR. MASON'S SCHEME. Dr. Mason’s scheme for a municipal milk depot is becoming the chief topic of conversation. Wellington is ignoring the subject, and the scheme has already been the subject of a preliminary discussion by the City Council’s Abattoirs and Milk Supply Committee. At the next meeting the matter is likely to be fully dealt with and made the themo of of a recommendation to the following Council meeting. In several towns private individuals and companies havo embarked on the sale of bottled pasteurised milk, in some instances with great success. In other cases the experiment has not been favourably received, it being alleged that germless milk, like sterilised water, lacks a certain palatability of flavour, which is a serious matter, for after all we mostly drink and eat for pleasure. Dr Mason, however, points out that there is a vast difference between pasteurised milk and milk that is ster- - iuised.

“To sterilise milk,” he said to a Times reporter,'“you require to boil it or bring it to boiling point, several times, but in pastuerismg you do not boil it at all. You simply heat it to about 165 degrees, and then suddenly cool it. This process kills all adult germs, but not the spores, and if carefully done there is very little change in the composition of the milk. There may, however, be a slight alteration in the nutritive value, for no one can gainsay the fact that milk taken form the cow and consume within reasonable time is a different fluid from milk that has been boiled, but it is a question of cliossing the lesser of many evils. The imbibition by a child of milk with a large number of germs in it sets up a kind of fermentation in its inside,and produces many infantile diseases gastro-enteritis, marasmus, imperfect ' nutrition, and a large number of oth-

er synonyms of bad milk. Convultions are often the final scene in the little child’s life. On the other hand, if a child takes pasteurised milk, it may lose some infinitesimal amount of valuable constituent of the milk, but it gets it free form inhibited organisms. • ‘Beneficial organisms? There are none. ; There are no organisms neccessaiy to milk. There is, unfortunately, a disease among milk cows less common now than formely, called mammitis. In many instances of this disease a great many organisms find their way into the milk and set up very severe diarrhoao among children. This is one of the things you get in ■unpasteurised milk, but Prof irsso. Metchnikoff, of the Pasteur Institute one of the greatest living authorities, goes so far as to deny- that there it any diminution caused in the elementary value of. milk by pasteurisation. Cases have been found where children fed on condensed milk developed scurvy, and it suggested that some vital essence of tne milk was killed in the boiling, but it would be easy enough to add certain constituents to milk if any scheme of humanising were

adopted by tbe Council to largely counteract this effect. “Preservatives p Yes, the mil'k depots will be able to deal with that evil also. Preservatives are used always for the interests of the vendor, never for'those of the consumer. Pre servatives are injurious, more or less, and they are never required if the milk is fresh and good. “The work can onlv be properly carried out by municipal or other public depots., because it would not pay anyone to build and maintain a large clearing-house, as I have chosen to call it, unless he possessed power to

prohibit the sale within a certain area of any milk that did not come from the depot. In many cases it would be found that;, people will buy anything that looks like milk if it a lit-tte-ehcapSr. The fault's with regard to milk do not rest entirely with: the milk-seller. A very large amount of injury is done by the hQuse-holders themselves. All sorts of cans are_ to be seen put out for the morning’s milk some of; them hung up in the sun. some devoid of covers, and open to

all sorts of pollution. It; would be folly for a: municipality to set up a clearinghouse, with its filtering apparatus, its pasteurising plant, and its plant for humanising milk suitable for youngsters, unless they first adopt regulations - to embrace all milk sold, _as they have power to do under section 346 of the Municipal Corporations Act: - “The adoption of Dr. Stopford’s proposal at Auckland would certainly do a great deal of good. Dr. Truby King has practially done for Dunedin wliat! would he done for Auckland, in, my , opinion something very ' ''-.to the various ■ ‘SCvjshould se‘ iicir-v’J-mil'!'.

. jh must be-1 a "-house the I jjmld be freed jiMrised if neces'“iwtioii of it could accordance with . to stiit the stomach! •Wdren. Such a house could.clover 5000 gallons of milk. Ejections from the trade? The ought to be welcomed by tin <4mle. u The cost would be small and 'The quality of the milk would be guaranteed. At present if a company objecte to its milk simply, its supplier! may tell them to get their milk else where, but this would bo impossible if all the milk had to go through the depot, where bad milk would be rejected. The dairyman would kr> ol* that he would get his money regul arly and in consideration of this cash basis the municipality could rightly ask him to undertake expenses which at present are not undertaken, 1 and they could lend money for the erection of up-to-date byres and milking sheds The efforts of the Agricultural Department will make for the betterment of the system before the mdk reaches the towns. Alll the deaths of infants are not due to bad mlk, but if all the'milk was freed from germs and filth the deaths would be far

fewer.” ' , “How would th© milk reach the com sumers?” ; “It should be sent out in sealed bottles, which would protect it form contamination by ; careless retailers or equally careless householders. the doctor produced a milk bottle made of almost unbreakable glass and sealed

with a pnner stopper, to be destroyed on using. * The bottles would be collected daily, storiliesd, and rinsed Still preferable was the paper bottle as used in America. It was sold sterilised, and at such a prioe ; that it could be defrayed after use. They cost less than the repair of brokenglass bottles. Reverting to preservatives Dr. Mason said,; "The curious thing is that preservatives retard the organ ism which produce souring, they dc hot in any way interfere with those germs in the milk which produce dis ease.” '' '