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epidemic of scarlet fever amoug the students at Purdue University, and 

 it is tliis that I consider the feature of this paper. 



About the first of December, 1902, it was reported to the authorities 

 of Purdue University, that there Avere a few cases of suspicious sicli:ness 

 among the students. One instructor, also, was found to be quite ill, and 

 during the illness had a well defined rash, and later had the characteristic 

 "peeling"' of scarlet fever. This case was not reported at first as being 

 scarlet fever. 



Six cases were confined in tlie hospital (St. Elizabeth's) and twenty- 

 nine others, most of whicli were not well defined cases, were at large 

 among the other students. Some few cases were purposely concealed by 

 students and physicians, so that other students rooming in the same houses 

 would not lie quarantined, and thus lose time from their classes. At 

 first, no common source of infection could be traced, the boys not eating 

 at the same places, and in some cases not even knowing the other patients. 

 Tlie thirty-five cases, it was foimd. were fed at eleven different boarding 

 houses or clubs, all of which were supplied with milk from the same 

 dairyman. 



Interesting, too, in this connection was the fact that the boy who 

 assisted in delivering the milk, came down with a severe case of "ton.si- 

 litis"' at the same time as the students, and had to give up his work tem- 

 porarily. Five private families, supplied with milk from this same man, 

 had one or more cases of genuine scarlet fever among their children at the 

 same time. It is not likely that the boy who delivered the milk spread 

 the disease, but that he contracted it by drinking the milk as did the 

 students. 



An investigation of the dairy, and the dairyman's family, did not re- 

 veal anything that could have caused the epidemic. There was no sick- 

 ness in the family, nor in either of the other two families that supplied 

 the dairyman with additional milk. The probable explanation of the 

 source of infection lies in the fact that last March the dairyman's family 

 ran through a course of scarlet fever, and this being about the time that 

 the winter clothing Avas abandoned for the thin summer clothing, that 

 Avinter clothing would again haA*e to be put on but a short time prior to 

 the outbreak among the students at Purdue. As it is IvUOAvn that the 

 scarlet fCA-er infection may remain Airident for a considerable time in 

 clothing, it is not unlikely that it was through this means that the milk 

 was infected. There is one other possibility, aMz., that there might have 



