Big benefit to drinking raw milk

IN April 1946, Nathaniel Mayer Victor Rothschild rose in the House of Lords on a matter of great import.

- by NIALL MCCRAE

There may have been many other priorities after the Second World War, but for Victor Rothschild, prevention of disease by pasteurisation of milk was paramount. His only other address in the chamber was on enabling Jewish settlers in the British mandate of Palestine.

A member of the banking dynasty, Victor Rothschild had little interest in international finance. He was a valued asset of the British intelligence services in the war, but his passion was zoology.

To urge prohibition of raw milk, Rothschild explained the difference between cleanliness and safety: “Though milk is one of nature’s best foodstuffs, it is by no means a perfect one, and no one can live exclusively on milk without additional minerals and vitamins.

“Consequently, the fact that a certain amount of these substances is removed by heat treatment is of much less significance than the opponents of heat treatment would have us believe. The opponents of pasteurisation—and many people who have fallen victims to their propaganda—sometimes say that pasteurisation will remove the incentive to clean milk.

“Such criticisms display a lack of understanding of the difference between clean and safe milk, and also impute a somewhat alarming degree of ignorance to the government in imagining that if compulsory pasteurisation were introduced, the government would remove the existing regulations about the cleanliness of milk. The regulations about the cleanliness of milk are directed towards preventing milk being contaminated with dust, blood, water, cow dung, and milk-souring bacteria, all of which at one time were an almost natural constituent of milk in this country.