| Description: | The importance of milk pasteurization was the point of this historic 1926 message from the Minnesota Department of Health. The drawing illustrated “an actual instance where pasteurization protected consumers against typhoid-infected milk.” A comparison was made between City R__, which reported 12 cases of typhoid, to City S__, which reported no cases of typhoid fever, due to the pasteurization process implemented prior to distribution of milk to the City S_ townsfolk.
This was one of a series of instructional images used by the Minnesota Board of Health used to train the state’s public health workers. The purpose of these images and the training was focused on protecting food supplies from bacterial contamination.Many people do not think about food safety until a food-related illness affects them or a family member. While the food supply in the United States in 2005 was deemed one of the safest in the world, CDC estimates that 76 million people get sick, more than 300,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 Americans die each year from food-borne illness. Preventing food-borne illness and death remains a major public health challenge. |
