242 MORE POT-POURRI 



To give children and invalids raw milk does seem a 

 most cruel risk. I know many young people who say 

 they would rather die than drink boiled milk. If they 

 were brought up from babyhood on cooked milk, I am 

 sure that this feeling would disappear. I copy the fol- 

 lowing extract on this subject of milk -sterilising from 

 a lecture (published in the 'Journal of State Medicine,' 

 January, 1899) on 'The Administrative Control of 

 Tuberculosis/ by Sir Richard Thorne Thorne, Medical 

 Officer of the Local Government Board, as it interests 

 and concerns far more people than the mere manage- 

 ment and health of cows, although this is the chief 

 point of Sir Richard's clear and admirable lecture. 

 The extract may seem rather long, but I feel compelled 

 to copy it, as it may in that way reach homes where 

 the more scientific periodical may never have been 

 heard of : ' It is a somewhat curious fact that the 

 inhabitants of the United Kingdom stand almost alone 

 amongst civilised nations in the habitual use of un- 

 cooked milk as food. This is the more to be regretted 

 because, by reason of this practice, human life, espe- 

 cially that of infancy and childhood, is being sacrificed 

 on a scale which, to use the mildest term, is altogether 

 deplorable. That this should be so is also altogether 

 unreasonable in the face of the certain knowledge we 

 possess, and which is set forth in the report of the 

 Royal Commission of 1890 in the following words : 

 ' ' The most deadly tubercular material can be rendered 

 absolutely innocuous, in so far as any spreading of 

 infective disease is concerned, by the action of a tem- 

 perature at which water boils." And again: "It is 

 sufficient to state that boiling, for an instant even, 

 renders the tubercle bacillus absolutely innocuous." 

 Milk exposed to a temperature of 100 C., whether by 

 boiling or other form of cooking, will not convey tuber- 



