MILK: BUT WHAT MILK ?
[To the Editor of TIIE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The Medical Committee of this Association has followed the correspondence under the heading, " Milk : But What Milk ? " and now notes with regret the suggestion by one of your contributors that if the pasteurisation of milk is to come, as come it will, such a step would be retrogreisive " because there is but a slight danger of infection from tuberculin-tested milk." This sentence is taken from your correspondent's letter and infers that he holds the view, long exploded by medical thought and research, that milk containing tubercle bacilli conveys to the consumer a degree of immunity. Perhaps he is not aware that the milk epidemic at Brighton, with attendant loss of life, occurred in a farm supplying certified tuberculin- tested milk.
It is deplorable that, despite all the warnings we have had in the loss of lives due to previous milk-borne infections, it is still possible for infected milks to be supplied to the public, and the remedy surely is that all milks, irrespective of grade, should be subjected to heat treatment—viz., pasteurisation. This process, scientifically applied and controlled, will eradicate all risk of passing on to consumers any bontamination, whether human, as was the case in the recent outbreak at Bourne- mouth, or from the animal supplying the milk.—I am, Sir,
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