In 1886, Franz von Soxhlet suggested the pasteurization of milk for infant nutrition.[To that point, pasteurization had been used for wine after Louis Pasteur’s proposal in 1868, but was not popular among makers of fine wines, who “had always safeguarded their wines by maintaining cleanliness in their cellars and by carefully following strict methods of manufacture.” They found that pasteurized wine acquired a “cooked” taste.
Pasteurization didn’t become widespread for decades. Many people distrusted it. In fact, the arguments raised at the time sound a lot like those of the raw milk movement today. Some doctors worried that heating the milk would destroy its nutritional value (especially its ability to fight scurvy, which we now know is due to Vitamin C). Other arguments were more economic, claiming that pasteurization would reduce incentives for farmers to produce clean milk or treat their herds well. Some people simply claimed that pasteurized milk was “not natural,” or “dead,” without specifying precisely what they meant.
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