578 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



disposed of by the watercloset, the soil-pipe from which \Yent 

 into a badly-jointed drain passing close to the milk-house. It 

 seemed as if the milk became contaminated in consequence of 

 the proximity of the defective drain to the milk-house, for 

 families supplied direct from the milk-sheds escaped infection, 

 and all families where infection did occur were supplied with 

 milk which had been kept over night in the milk-house. 



In Leeds, in 1873, an outbreak of typhoid fever was traced 

 to the milk-supply from a special dairy. It was found that 

 the dairyman had been ill with typhoid fever, that the excreta 

 had been cast partly into a privy and partly on to a dung- 

 hill, and that drainage from each of these found its way into 

 a well used both for domestic and for dairy purposes. The 

 sudden outbreak of fever among families supplied from this 

 dairy corresponded with the time necessai-y for the develop- 

 ment of the fever after the first pollution of the well ; and the 

 cessation of the ei^idemic corresponded also with an interval 

 after its being closed, consistent with the theory that its watei' 

 had been infected. 



Scarlet fever, like typhoid, is most probably due to a germ, 

 but, unfortunately, in its case it is not decided on which genu 

 the responsibility of such a scourge is to be cast. A London 

 scientist, Dr. Klein, has discovered one germ which he regards 

 as certainly the specific germ of scarlet fever. In Edinburgh, 

 Dr. Edington has equally convinced himself and others that 

 scarlet fever is not caused by Klein's germ, but by one quite 

 different, which he himself has discovered. Till this question 

 is settled we must be content to know that general evidence 

 is in favour of some germ or other being at the root of the 

 mischief known as scarlet fever. Granting that this specific 

 germ does exist, it is present especially in the scales given off 

 from the skin of scarlet-fever patients during convalescence, 

 as well as during the more acute stage of the disease. In 

 these scales the germs are blown about until perhaps they 

 find a resting-place in the alimentary tract or air-passages of 

 some other unfortunate individual, who thus becomes infected. 

 It is, however, not only by the scales from the skin that the 

 infection is carried, but probably by other excretions of the 

 body. Scarlet fever is one of the most infectious of diseases, 

 and to expose milk to the air in the immediate vicinity of a 

 scarlet-fever patient, to allow any one recovering from the 

 disease to partake in the duties of the dairy, or even any one 

 who comes in contact with such a patient, is to court the risk 

 of an epidemic. That scarlet fever has occasionally been 

 conveyed to man through the agency of milk has been .known 

 for some fifteen or sixteen years i It was for long taken for 

 granted that the milk became contaminated directly from a 

 human source, but in 1886 a new question was raised witli 



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