[LMB] OT: husband’s “fun” in the ER

[Matija Grabnar]

On 28/10/2021 16:53, Robert Woodward wrote:
> Back in the early 1960s, when we were living in Stratford, Ontario (the only time I have lived outside the USA), the local milk company was doing home deliveries with a horse-drawn wagon (IIRC, later in the 60s, the company had converted to small trucks). In our case, there was a compartment in the outside wall of the kitchen that had an outside door and an inside door and that’s where the milk was delivered.

When I was very young, and my mother started me on cow's milk (bought in 
a shop), I was not able to take it - I would puke it right back out.

The doctor said that I must be lactose intolerant.

But my grandmother, who lived outside the city and still had milk 
delivered, described my symptoms to her milkwoman. "Oh! I know what that 
is!" the milkwoman said, and started delivering milk from one cow to my 
grandmother.

Not a specific cow, but milk that was milked from one cow and not mixed 
with milk from other cows. I could take that without a problem. And some 
months later, my mother tried again with shop milk (which is multi-cow 
by definition), and I was able to take it.

I have no idea why it worked, and I was too young at the time to insist 
on a double blind test.

If I had to speculate today, I would speculate that "milk from single 
cow" was treated more carefully than the "general" milk - a cleaner 
pail? More careful sterilization? A cleaner/more carefully inspected 
bottle?

Again, that is speculation, not even a hypothesis. Sadly, my grandmother 
is no longer around to ask her opinion, nor is the milkwoman who 
delivered to her. But I still drink milk, and if I had been raised as 
lactose intolerant, I couldn't. I owe my grandmother a lot.