REPORT OF THE No. 55 



For the Province there can be only one ideal healthy cows, cleanly methods 

 and prompt chilling. This does not mean certified " milk, but it should mean 

 reasonably clean milk. Any other ideal would be unworthy of the Province. 

 Pasteurization exponents urge that this is not possible and that in any event in 

 the meantime pasteurization should be adopted. The individual municipality 

 must decide this. We do not see any reason why the adoption of a policy of strict 

 and intelligent supervision, as outlined above, should not result in a reasonably 

 safe supply of milk for any Ontario city or town, all of which, with perhaps one 

 exception, have their supply within easy access. In pointing out that milk is a 

 cause of disease and urging sane precautions to prevent its dissemination, it is not 

 necessary to go to the other extreme and regard it as the chief cause of disease, 

 which it is not. The menace of milk to infant life is pointed out in a previous 

 chapter, and the necessity for a special supply in the hot months is urged. Whether 

 that supply is clean and raw or clean and pasteurized is a detail, as both have shown 

 good results. There should be no pasteurization of dirty milk. But raw milk 

 enters into the daily food of the average adult in cities and towns to too small an 

 extent to be any a.larming menace to his health. We believe that safe, clean milk 

 is a matter of self-respect as well as self-defence. If, however, a municipality 

 finds, by bacteriological examinations or otherwise, that a strict supervision does 

 not conduce to a safe milk supply, then pasteurization offers the best expedient 

 yet devised. 



In any event, it is time municipalities undertook the regulation of pasteuriza- 

 tion. Summed up, continuous pasteurization from the health standpoint is a de- 

 lusion resulting only in false securit}^; proper scientific pasteurization is effective 

 and comparatively non-injurious. If it is to be done at all, it should be done 

 properly. The public should know what it is buying and no milk should be sold 

 as pasteurized unless it has been held at least 140 deg. for at least twenty minutes. 

 Milk which has been raised to 165 deg. for thirty seconds should be sold as "heated'' 

 milk and not as pasteurized. In this connection attention is directed to New 

 York labels on another page. A similar legal protection should be extended to 

 the term "certified/' 



To pasteurization, the most common objection heard is that it would result in 

 dirty barns and careless methods of handling. This may be a plausible theory but 

 should have no corroboration in actual practice. Pasteurization and inspection are 

 two entirely different things and should not be confused in private thinking or 

 legislative action. Pasteurization cannot make dirty milk clean, though it may 

 render it comparatively harmless. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that pas- 

 teurization as an expedient in no way mitigates the fundamental fact that inspec- 

 tion is a sanitary necessity based on a belief in cleanliness for the sake of cleanliness 

 as well as for the sake of protection. If a company desires to pasteurize because its 

 customers want that kind of milk or because the municipality regards it as an essen- 

 tial safeguard, there is the added responsibility on the municipality to see that it is 

 properly done ; but there is no less a responsibility on the municipality to maintain 

 a supervision that will assure cleanliness and care at every stage. Unless muni- 

 cipalities desire to undertake the work, which we do not anticipate, the responsi- 

 bility of pasteurization rests on the individual company; the duty of inspection 

 rests with the municipality. Pasteurization as a substitute for inspection should 

 not be tolerated. 



