RAW MILK IS PERFECT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 140, 30 June 1937, Page 9

RAW MILK IS PERFECT

The Dangers of Pasteurisation BRITISH CONDEMNATION During the past year a considerable agitation lias been observed to create a public demand for nlilk pasteurisation. The dangers of dri'nking raw milk have been stressed, particular emphasis bo* ing placed on the rislc t»f T.B. infcction. In the city of Wellington practically the whole of the milk consumed is provided by the Municipal Milk . Suppiy Department. This suppiy is pasteurised. Frequently the suppiy is held up as &n example for other cities. In Hastings and other such cities and towns little pasteurised milk is sold. Certain enthusiasts would wish to sea all fupplies pasteurised. Whether or not that would be to the beneflt of the public health, appears doubtful, to say the least. Pasteurisation Condemned. , Herewith is given the opinion of a British authority, Sir Arnold Wilsou, M.P., chairman of the Industrial Health Research Board of 1926-1933. Not only does this high authority condemn pasteurisation, but also the tuberculin testing of dairy cows. The article quoted, is a featured one, from a forem'ost British. journal, the Farmer and Stock-Breeder, of April 13, 1937. "Pasteurised milk is milk that has been heated to 125 degrees to 1.50 degrees Fah.; for at least half an hour then cooled to 65 degrees. This process hvoids waste in milk provided to great cities, by postponing souring. If ail the milk produced were free from disease generating organisms, . it would still b'e neeessary on commercial grounds to pasteurise large quantities. The process does not destroy all nuiro-organ-ismsj some disease generating spores survive; some beneficial anti-bodies perish. Whether pasteurised milk has the same body building and nutritive value as raw milk is not certainiy known. The weight of evidence f ro'ra experiments on calves and rats favpura • raw milk. Effect on Nutritive Qualities. Large scale experiments on children are in progress; up to date those schools in which only raw milk is used, seem to be healthier than those fed on pasteurised milk. Pasteurisation destroys, vitamin C and to some extent vitamin T>. And as even raw milk contains barely sufficient vitamin C, the danger of deficiency diseases — often not detected till later in life, when it is too date — is very xeal. Dr. Chalmers Watson, the Senior iPhysician of Edinburgh Royal Imflriuary, regards the loss of body building , value by pasteurisation as something ; Which cannot be rnade good by the addition of orange or other regetable juiccs. To his testimony muet be added that of Dr. F. C. S. Bradlury, M.D., D.P.-H, "Ordinary coprs' milk appears to differ from most other foodstuffs in being par excellence a food which must be consumed fresh." This first suggests that shortage of milk has possibly ino ro important aspects than mere undernourishment, and that perhaps vitamins, enzymes, or unknown constituents of fresh milk have an important bearing f on the body's defence against tuberj culosiS.,, It may also have a bearing j on the body's defences against 15 or 20 j other diseases which are known to be a far more frequent cause of death in infants and adolescents than is tuber* culosis. The T.B. Bogey. Some medical officers of health are fond of repeating that, "2,000 to 2,500 pcrso'ns, mainly children, die in England and Wales each year from tuberculosis of bovine origin." This statement is untrue; the total numbers of deaths from T. B, of all kinds, is much less common in^rujral areas, where all milk is drunk raw, than in grcat cities and boroughs, where almost all milk is pasteurised, The uu'ant mortality in Torcnto, where a!l milk is pasteurised, is douhle that in Victoria and Vancouver, where all is drunk raw. The increased use of T. T. milk (from tuberculin tested cows) in Copenhagen has heen followed by an increase in the deaths of children from T. B. where T. B. has heen most completely eradicated from cattle it has increased among human beihgs." It is often alleged that, of all diseases conveyed by milk, tuberculosis is the most important. There is, however no evidence, as far as I know, that -tho disease has been artificially induced in any4 healthy anima! under laboratory conditions by a diet of tuberculosis milk. It can, in fact, be induced only by highly concentrated intradernal (through the skin) injectionsi. It is well know that non-pulmonury tuberculosis, 80 per cent. of which is ascribed by certain sections of medical opinion to milk (upon wholly inadequate statistical data) is common in many countrles where bovine tubeculosis is practically unknown. It is least in those areas where* a degree of immunisation has been reached, as in this country (Britain). In this country the death rate from tuberculosis has fallen in the last 80 years more rapidly tban that from any other disease except small-pox. It has fallen by about 80 per nent since 1851, by 50 per cent sinee 1911, from 1,062 per million in 1932 to 822 in 1933, 768 in 1934 and 718 in 1935. The death rate from tuberculosis of the > intestines and peritpneum (inore com- . monly assoeiated with bovine bacilli than any other forrn) has fallen iroin 51 per million in 1923 to 18 per million in 1935. Safety of Milk. The lack (alleged in some quarters) of public conlidence as to the safety 01 milk is probably gr«atly exaggerated So far as it exists it is based upon ad vcrtisiug campaign, dcliberately under takcn in tho intcrests of those lirms wln must pastcui'ise eud who wi3h to «x

clude from business those who neod not or cannot use thia process. They are unfortunately supportod, often' blindly, by the Medical Press. "All English judges are iinpartial," said Lord Davey, hiipself. a great judge, "but not all have the power of divesting their minds of prejudice." This is true of all professions and not less of men with scientific training. We are apt to assure the truth of the proposition we ,seek to prove, and to place on sceptics the onus of proving that it it not so. The importance of inilk to-day is that it is, in its raw and unadulterated form, with meat and buttor and cheese, one of the few food products which reach theconsumer with its dietic properties unimpaired. Our first business, thon, is to ensure a plentif ul milk • suppiy to the native, and it must be as cheap as possible aud it must also be pure; but purity is not synonymous with devitalisation. ' '