Вы можете использовать функцию Никласа Б. в аргументе convertd в csv2rec:
>>> data = mlab.csv2rec(infile, names=['datetime', 'values'],
... convertd={'values': parse_number})
>>> data
rec.array([(datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 24, 9, 7, 1), 8100000.0),
(datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 24, 9, 7, 2), 64800000.0),
(datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 24, 9, 7, 3), 84800000.0),
(datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 24, 9, 7, 4), 84800000.0),
(datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 24, 9, 7, 5), 84800000.0),
(datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 24, 9, 7, 7), 84800000.0),
(datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 24, 9, 7, 8), 84800000.0),
(datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 24, 9, 7, 9), 84800000.0),
(datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 24, 9, 7, 10), 84800000.0)],
dtype=[('datetime', '|O8'), ('values', '<f8')])