PASTEURISING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4516, 17 January 1923, Page 1

PASTEURISING.

AMERICAN SUPPORTERS; INTERESTING DISCUSSION. The National Milk Conference recently spent an interesting morning in discussing pasteurisation and other methods of treating milk. There was considerable opposition to the advocates of pasteurisation On the ground that raw milk possessed valuable qualities which were destroyed by boiling it. The value of dried milk was discussed, and several eminent doctors spoke from long experience in favour of dried milk, emphasisinfl the fact that it was moire easily protected from contamination than wet milk. This view naturally did not commend itself to the whole conference. Dr. Georges Dreyer, Professor of Pathology at Oxford, said theire were many reasons why we should go to the trouble of treating milk instead Of using it as from the cow. The first was that in this country, as in many other’ countries, we were centuries behind in regard to cleanliness. The number of microbes which milk might contain varied from a few thousands to many millions • per cubic centigramme. These bacteria got, into the] milk in various' ways from the cow itself, from the milkers’ hands, from the air, and last, but not least, from thp containers used for the milk. There was not sufficient knowledge as to the keeping of such containers clean from a bacteriological point of view. The most important bacteria that had to be dealt witn were the microbes that caused diseases in man. EFFECTS OF STERILISING. Dr. Eric Pritchard, who opened the discussion, said that the food value of milk was not atlei’ed in the slightest degree by heating or sterilisatitm. He hoped that from the conference there would go forth a definite expression of opinion <tp the effect that there were definite dangers' in the consumption of raw milk from the point of view of infants and children, and that those dangers could be definitely removed by the application of heat to the raw article. Mrs Straus, on behalf of, Dr. Natlhan Straus, former president bf .the Department of' Health in New York, read a statement which said that to destroy the dangerous micro-organism in mUk required the retaining of the milk for 25 minutes at a tempfirature of 145 to 160' degrees Famrenheit. Existing facilities patented the production of a ■safe raw milk. Even the certified grade A quality, of which only a negligible quantity at an enormous price was on the market, was not beyond exposure to infection. DJRTY MILK. Dirty milk, he said, was not merely dangerous, but was actually the cause year by year of'a large amount of ill-health and deformities and of a large number of deaths. No system of inspection could prevent this'. Pedigree herds of dairy cattle frequently suffered from tuberculosis. Testing at three or six months’ interval would not render impossible contamination of the milk by the tubercle bacillus. For the evils there was no other remedy in sight than the enforcing of real pasteurisation of; all milk. Mr Straus, who also spoke, declared that pasteurisation would result in a great saving in hospital expenses. Mr Tustin, formerly chairman of the Milk Control Board of Canada during the war, mentioned that in Winnipeg the introduction of pasteurised milk caused a reduction in the death rate among children under a year old from 212 per thousand to 89 per thousand in four years. Dr. R. Stenhouse Williams said it was a matter for consideration whether the pasteurisation of milk would not lead to an increase in nutritional diseases. In the first five years of lilfje there was a higher death-rate from tuberculosis than in any subsequent fiveyear period. He did not say that all these cases wree caused by bovine tubercle bacilli, but there was a very ( great percentage. It was so high a percentage that in his it would not only be folly, but criminal folly, to neglect it. QUESTION OF PRICE. Whatever was done from the point of veiw o>f cleanliness it was neces-. sary. le said, that the.price of .the' milk should not go beyond a certain figure. High-grade milk would not reach the large masses of poor chib dren in the country if the price was prohibitive Dried milk could reach the big industrial centres and supply a good substitute for the fresh milk. It would be better for children to be fed cn a good quality dried milk than that they should have ho milk at all, or very little, or what they did have not good fresh mlik. Dr. Charles E. North, of New York, said infections of the udder in dairy cows constituted by far the most serious menace to the public health, originating from dairy cattle. The appreciation of the public health value of pasteurisation had become so groat in the United States and Canada that it was fair to say that in all of the larger cities at least 99 per cent, of the milk was pasteurised. The special virtue which raw milk was supposed t.o possess had proved to lie chimerical.