Heretics

Fluid milk is unfit for human consumption, says 75-year-old Dr. Horace Wendell Soper of St. Louis. As a onetime recorder of the GastroEnterological Association and chairman of A.M.A.'s section in that field, he cannot be dismissed as a crank. In 1941, after 47 years of practice, he retired, but soon returned to work because "I liked work better." He started damning fluid milk about 25 years ago, after 15 years of watching its effect in the human gut.

"Man," he wrote in his latest excoriation, "appears to be the only mammal which habitually consumes milk after the period of lactation has ceased." To prove milk unnecessary, Dr. Soper cited Nutritionist Elmer Verner McCollum, discoverer of several vitamins and advocate of a quart of milk a day. McCollum described inhabitants of the wet regions in southern Asia who live on a diet of rice, soybeans, sweet potatoes and many other vegetables. They are better developed physically, have more capacity for work and endurance, escape the skeletal defects (rickets) of childhood and have the finest teeth of any race in the world. Dr. Soper added that "the cow is essentially an unclean animal" and in spite of "all strenuous efforts and precautions, the best milk" is a sort of "bacterial soup."

Few doctors would lend an ear to anti-vaccal Dr. Soper, but milk bacteriologists agree with him about the bacteria. Among those present:

>Lactobacillus acidophilus (normal habitat: milk) is present in all decaying tooth cavities. This fact, well substantiated by research in the U.S. and abroad, may explain why only civilized people experience tooth decay.

> The tubercle bacillus thrives in milk.

>Streptococci from unpasteurized milk have caused epidemics of scarlet fever, septic sore throat, dysentery, epidemic ulcer in children, have been involved in infantile paralysis.

Pasteurization will not satisfy Dr. Soper. If it is careless, tubercle bacilli survive (TIME, Jan. 4). He gives instances when even careful pasteurization (about 144DEG F. for 30 minutes) did not kill all harmful bacteria. Among those left alive: streptococci involved in some poliomyelitis epidemics, spore-forming organisms (chiefly intestinal bacteria of cattle, capable of causing diarrhea in infants), acidophilus and pneumococci-like organisms.

Dr. Soper's solution: evaporated canned milk for infants until they can eat a balanced diet; no milk at all for adults. Evaporated milk is sterile, keeps indefinitely in the tin, is always available without waiting for the milkman.

Millions of milk-drinking U.S. citizens have accepted Elsie The Cow as a heroine and are not likely to be deterred by Dr. Soper's theory. Says a Department of Agriculture bulletin: "Milk and cheese are of prime importance . . . because of their exceptional food value. No other single kind of food has as much to offer to good nutrition. . . . The diet of every family should include . . . milk and milk products." Most people believe milk to be good food, tolerate bacteria in it in reasonable quantities as part of each man's "peck of dirt before he dies," give milk credit for making U.S. Irishmen even taller than their Erin brothers and U.S. Japanese inches taller than their forebears.

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