Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-31
TO SAVE BABIES
FROM RAW MILK
PHILANTHR0PlST TELLS OF
LURKING DANGER
CITES FIGURES WHICH SHOW
RAVAGES OF GERMS
Nathan Straus Tells international
Medical Congress lnfantlle Death
Rate Can Be Cut in Half by
Fasteurizing Food

BUDAPEST, Aug. 30.-Nathan
Straus, the New York philanthropist,
today made an appeal to the Interna-
tional Medical Congress, in session here,
to save the babies from tuberculosis
and the other infectious diseases that
are often carried in milk.
He cited the evidence of 317 milk
caused epidemics of typhoid fever, l25
of scarlet fever, 81 of diphtheria and
of epidemic sore throat. He told how
Washington had typhoid fever where
raw milk was used and practically
none in the sections of the city where
pasteurized milk was sold. He cited
his own experience of eighteen years
in cutting in half the infantile death
rate of New York and other cities one
half by pasteurized milk.
Milk a Cause of Tuberculosis
Mr.. Straus paid particular attention
to milk as a cause of tuberculosis. He
said
THE specific germ that causes tuber-
culosis is found in much of the milk
that is used for human food. In Amer
lea only one-tenth of one per cent OF
the milk daily sold is certified as free
from tubercle bacilli. Conditions are
much the same in every country.
"Dr. John f. Anderson of the Hy-
gienic Laboratory, found virulent
tubercle bacilli in 6.72 per cent f223
samples of Washington milk, after the
department of agriculture had for
years been diligently wedding out tub
erculosis COWS.
"Dr. Alfred H. Hess found tubercle
! bacilli in 16 per cent of 107 samples
of New York milk.
THE London county council found
that 1919 per cent of 1917 samples were
undoubtedly tuberculous.
Fact Automatically Proved
"These facts would be alarming
were they not illuminatiYe. They
would inspire terror, did they not point
the way to the means of saving TIN,
human race from this widespread and
ever present peril
Among scientific men, save the few
who in 1901 committed themselves to
a hasty assumption, no one now in
1909 doubts the transmission of bovine
tuberculosis through milk. Nor does
any one, unless similarly committed to
some pet error, dispute the certain ef-
ficacy of pasteuriZation as killing the
infection, rendering the milk safe,
while in no way impairing its food
qualities.
ut is, in fact, proved with mathe-
matical certainty, that progress In
fighting the great white plague depends
on the adoption of methods of evictins
the tubercle bacilli from the milk sup
plies. The elimination of the diseased
animals from the herds, it is admitted,
will be the work of years, involving
the expenditure of many millions. The
destruction of the tubercle bacilli in
milk Is the work of half an hour, the
cost trihing.'
Wants to Stop Assassination
Mr.. Straus cited a great English au-
thority, Sir James Crichton-Browne.
president of the Sanitary Inspectors
association, who said:
"The primary and paramount food
question is the protection of the milk
supply. Suicide, as we'll as assassina-
ton, has to be prevented by the strict
est surveillance. The first and funda-
mental necessity in the protection of
life is the application of efficient mod
ern methods of publication to the dis
ease infested milk supply"
The philanthropist pointed out that
in killing the disease germs In milk
by pasteurization he had reduced the
death rate among children in one
founding asylum in New York from
4436 per cent to 1913 per cent, had cut
the infantile death rate in Sandhausen
Germany to less than half of the aver
age of the preceding five years, had
achieved the same result in Ebers-
walde, near Berlin. where not one of
the children fed upon pasteurized milk
had died from October, 190S to July,
1909. He pointed out that the infantile
death rate In New York city had stead
lily declined with the increase in the
use of pasteurized milk from 800 per
1000 in 1891, to 49.6 in 1908.
Life Saving Better Than Armament
Mr.. Straus said that the nations
were spending vast sums on war equip
ment, but that the true way to make
the nations great was to save the re-
sources given to them in their children,
by protecting them from the diseases
that kill more than wars. He said;
Every expenditure upon the means
to destroy lives in war should be
duplicated by the setting apart of like
sums for the saving Of lives by the
prevention of disease.
"The advocates of expensive arma-
ment justify their programs by saying
that they seek to prevent war No eX-
cuse is necessary for the proposal that
like millions at least be spent to pre-
vent sickness and death.