EoBEiiTOK. — Milk as a Vehicle of Disease. 577 



Typhoid, or enteric, or gastric, or low fever is the most 

 common of the specific fevers, and is endemic in ahnost every 

 quarter of the globe. It is probably caused by a germ which 

 was discovered and described some eight years ago. This 

 germ is presejit in the excreta of those suffering from typhoid 

 fever, and most cases of infection are caused directly or in- 

 directly from the excreta of typhoid patients contaminating 

 water, food, or perhaps the air. It must be well known to all 

 here how frequently the prevalence of typhoid fever is ascribed 

 to defective drainage. When drainage is defective the waste 

 material from houses is not properly removed. It lodges in 

 some depression in the ground, or perhaps saturates the 

 ground. At any rate, there is an accumulation of organic 

 matter with plenty of moisture, just the condition necessary 

 for the thriving of germs. Should the typhoid germ iind 

 access to this accumulation, in time the collection of filth 

 becomes a very successful typhoid-breeding establishment. 

 Soakage from this filth finds its way to some well, which is 

 thus polluted and infected. Or dry weather comes ; some of 

 the filth dries up, is powdered, and is blown hither and thither 

 into wells, tanks, food, or, it may be, directly into the nose or 

 mouth of some one. The germs are not killed by being dried 

 up ; they are only for the time being prevented from multi- 

 plying. So soon as they become moist they again begin to 

 develope. Milk is usually infected with the typhoid germs from 

 an impure water-supply ; possibly it is diluted wdth impure 

 water, or polluted water is used to wash the cans and other 

 dairy-utensils. In either case the germ is added to the milk. 

 It may be that dust containing the typhoid germ reaches the 

 milk. Hence one great necessity for placing milk in dust- 

 proof cans during its distribution. In x\uckland the night-soil 

 carts (containing excreta from typhoid folk as well as heodthy) 

 are very capable of distributing filth along the streets they 

 traverse, and, as we know, the street-dust is not the least of 

 the nuisances existing in the town. 



Some assert that milk may become capable of conveying 

 typhoid fever through w\ater polluted with the typhoid poison 

 being given to the cows. This theory, however, is not 

 proved. Were this the case the system of the cow nuist be 

 first infected, and evidence sufficient to prove that this is pos- 

 sible has not yet been brought forward. 



As examples of the evidence often found connecting a 

 typhoid epidemic with milk from a special dairy, let me men- 

 tion one or two cases which have actually occurred. 



In February, 1889, some fifty cases" of typhoid fever oc- 

 curred in Stirling and its neighbourhood, and were traced to 

 be caused by milk from one farm. It was found that a case 

 of fever had occurred at the farm-house, and the excreta were 

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