Milk: Pure or Poisonous? The History of a Key Food and its Health Consequences, 1850-1960. (360G-Wellcome-078698_Z_05_Z)

My goal is to write an innovative book that will use a single commodity as an anchor point for a study of the interactions between food supplies, health and politics. In contemporary food chains, the separation of the places of production and consumption under the conditions of modernity was founded upon trust in anonymous intermediaries. This trust was fragile and was increasingly mediated by expert knowledge of commodity control. Two challenges were particularly apparent. First, there was the threat of adulteration, which in the case of milk was an ever-present problem up to the 1920s; second, the spread of diseases such as tuberculosis through infected milk and meat was established to be a hazard. In consequence, there was a priority in negotiating conventions that would encourage trade while minimizing risk to the consumer of being cheated or infected. I will chart the origins and endurance of these conventions. The quality-checking systems were conceived from network-shaping series of social practices, standardized measuring instruments, and analytical procedures. In my view, it is impossible to grasp the present day 'quality' of foods without a knowledge of the historical dynamic of the application of technology and state action to such 'natural' raw materials.