Louis Pasteur never pasteurized raw milk, nor did the French scientist advocate for market gatekeeping through food processing corporations in the United States or Europe.
From Wikipedia:
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the last of which was named after him.
Pasteurization was developed, by Pasteur, through the sterilization of wine and dog urine. Pasteur also set out to pasteurize beer, for shelf stability, to improve the commercial beer market in France so much that it might embarrass Germany. From the Science History Institute:
Spurred by nationalistic pride after the defeat of French troops in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Pasteur applied his new technique to the creation of a “beer of revenge” that would top Germany’s finest. In one demonstration he collected beer from Paris’s best cafes and treated some to pasteurization. The treated ones kept indefinitely, while the remainder soon became cloudy and undrinkable. Pasteur shared his knowledge with French breweries to shore up their business prospects, though the best “beer of revenge” was arguably brewed in Copenhagen’s Carlsberg brewery.
Way too cool of a guy to be scared of a 1 in 500,000 chance of hospitalization by raw milk.
Milk pasteurization developed in Germany
The first person to implement a pasteurization of milk in commerce was Franz von Soxhlet to prevent disease and spoilage caused by milk transported without refrigeration.
Pasteurization mandates fail in the UK
Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild, lobbied the UK Parliament to write and enforce mandatory milk pasteurization laws in The United Kingdom. This initiative failed, and raw milk sales were never made illegal in England or Wales. Scotland later mandated pasteurization, so Scottish raw milk consumers must travel to northern England to make a purchase.
Milk pasteurization comes to the USA
The person to industrialize milk pasteurization in The United States was Nathan Straus, a businessman, with help from Abraham Jacobi, a doctor and businessman. They did so in the wake of the Swill Milk Scandal and mass illness caused by poor industrialized dairy production standards.
John D Rockefeller lobbied the first city to mandate pasteurization, Chicago in 1909, as the city was among the hardest hit epicenters of ill-effects by early industrial dairies. He also held significant stake in milk processing corporations. You can find raw milk farms near Chicago today.
Raw milk is currently regulated at the state level in the US, with some states allowing full retail sales, while others require raw milk to be distributed privately or sold under animal feed regulatory frameworks. View Raw Milk Laws
