In February 1907, a New York physician discovered that his longtime dairy supplier had switched to pasteurized milk. He so detested the practice—not to mention the taste—that, as he wrote to the New York Times, he would rather "run the risk of typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and tuberculosis rather than [endure] the evils that I believe would follow the systematic and prolonged use of pasteurized milk."
One assumes the doctor was indulging in a public temper tantrum, not broadcasting a suicide wish. By 1907, physicians knew well the blistering fevers of typhoid, the terrible choking deaths of diphtheria, and what was then called "the white plague" of tuberculosis. Raw milk containing those very pathogens had been linked to the deaths of hundreds of children in New York City annually. And by the time that letter was published, some four decades of experiments showed that the quick-heat treatment of pasteurization could save lives.
But the subject of raw milk just makes people irrational. The doctor's snit about his preferred dairy product is part of a grand theatrical tradition, a century's worth of contention, lawsuits, accusations, counter-accusations, profanity, career damage, threats, and a certain amount of pure melodrama: "Pasteurized milk is dead milk which will rot on standing," one of the New York physician's intellectual descendents declared during hearings preceding the FDA's 1987 ban on interstate shipping of raw milk. "One of nature's most perfect foods has been murdered."
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