xxvi Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



conclusive evidence that such diseases as cholera, typhoid, 

 small-pox, and measles owe their origin to living germs, the 

 final test being that the germs, when cultivated pure, are 

 capable, by inoculation or otherwise, of again producing the 

 disease. Till quite recently, this want of relation with any 

 disease of animals was held to be notably the case with scarlet 

 fever. The chief mode by which it spreads, as an epidemic, 

 is undoubtedly by way of direct or indirect contagion from 

 person to person. 



There have been a few instances, generall}'- accepted as 

 well authenticated, in which the contagion seemed to be 

 conveyed through the medium of milk. But it was always 

 taken for granted, even when it was not clearly proved, that 

 the milk had become contaminated by access to it of scales 

 from the skin, or other infecting particles from the body, of 

 a patient suffering from the disease. It came, therefore, as 

 a startling novelty, when, in 1886 it was announced, on 

 good authority, that an outbreak of scarlet fever in a district 

 of London, had not only been traced to the use of milk, but 

 that this milk got its contagious properties, not b}" con- 

 tamination with particles from a scarlatina patient, but by 

 the circumstance that it was derived from diseased cows. 

 Experiments were made by Dr. Klein, the well-known 

 bacteriologist and microscopist, and the circumstances and 

 surroundings of the dairy were carefully inquired into by 

 Dr. Power, one of the most experienced Inspectors of the 

 Local Government Board. The cows were found to be 

 suffering, not only from general signs of illness, but from a 

 disease affecting the udder and teats. From the sores on 

 these parts. Dr. Klein obtained bacterial forms, which he 

 declared to be similar to those which he also found in the 

 bodies of scarlet fever patients. He further made pure 

 cultures of the special organism from both sources, and by 

 inoculation on calves, produced a form of illness, which 

 resembled in different respects, both the scarlatina of man 

 and the disease from which the cows had suffered. On 

 inquiry, it did not appear that there were cases of scarlatina 



