206 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the same form of sickness. From one to four hours elapsed between 

 the meal and the first symptoms." * * * While the cause of the sick- 

 ness was being sought for, and one week after the first series of cases, 

 thirty persons at another hotel were taken ill with precisely the same 

 symptoms as noticed in the first outbreak. " * * * Further 

 inquiry revealed the fact that all who had been taken ill had used milk in 

 greater or less quantities, and that persons who had not partaken of milk 

 escaped entirely; corroborative of this, it was ascertained that those who 

 had used milk to the exclusion of all other food were violently ill. This 

 was prominently noticed in the cases of infants fed from the bottle, when 

 nothing but uncooked milk was used. In one case an adult drank about a 

 quart of the milk, and was almost immediately seized with violent vomit- 

 ing, followed by diarrhoea, and this by collapse. Suffice it to say, that we 

 were able to eliminate all other articles of food and to decide that the 

 milk was the sole cause of the outbreak." 



"Having been able to determine this, the next step was to discover 

 why that article should, in these cases, cause so serious a form of 

 sickness." 



"* * * * * • It was soon ascertained that one dealer had sup- 

 plied all the milk used at the three hotels where the cases of sickness 

 had occurred. His name and address having been obtained, the next 

 step in the investigation was to inspect all the farms, and the cattle 

 thereon, from which the milk was taken. We also learned that two 

 deliveries at the hotels were made daily, one in the morning and one in 

 the evening; that the milk supplied at night was the sole cause of the 

 sickness, and that the milk from but one of the farms was at fault." 



''The cows on this farm were found to be in good health, and, besides 

 being at pasture, were well fed with bran, middlings and corn-meal." 



"* ****** Th e cows were milked at the unusual and abnor- 

 mal hours of midnight and noon, and the noon's milking — 'that which 

 alone was followed by illness — was placed, while hot, in the cans, and 

 then, without any attempt at cooling, carted eight miles during the 

 warmest part of the day in a very hot month. ******* 



"The results of our inquiry having revealed so much, we next attempted 

 to isolate some substance from the poisonous milk, in order that the 

 proof might be more evident." 



<"'• ***** We are justified in assuming, after weighing well 

 all the facts ascertained [/ have purposely omitted the chemical exam- 

 ination. Author.'] in the investigation, that the sickness at Long Branch 

 was caused by poisonous milk, and that the toxic material was tyro- 

 toxicon." 



Associated with these cases of poisonous milk, we invariably find unde- 

 sirable methods or circumstances for the handling of milk. Either filth 

 has furnished these toxicogenic bacteria or they have got in from 

 what might be called natural sources and have developed under condi- 

 tions to which no milk should be subjected. 



