i8 95 . NOTES AND COMMENTS. 13 



be certain that, except in special cases to which we shall allude, they 

 run no more risk than the risks of breathing the common air or 

 coming in contact with the outer world in the most necessary fashion. 

 All animals and plants inevitably are subject to a bombardment of 

 bacteria, and the few taken in casually with articles of food are of 

 little moment. The living body itself in most cases is able to dispose 

 satisfactorily of the most unwelcome bacterial intruders. Otherwise 

 in the struggle for existence man and the higher animals would perish 

 before the onslaught of bacteria. 



Those who are in a feeble state of health may do well to take 

 special precautions. They may protect themselves partially against 

 inhaling bacteria by wearing respirators ; they may avoid all but the 

 most carefully cooked food. But as few could resist the continued 

 immigration of disease-causing bacteria, certain definite precautions 

 must be insisted upon. 



The first and most obvious is the destruction, by burning, of all 

 matter that has been in contact with a person suffering from an 

 infectious disease. No doubt in towns this is fairly well seen to ; in 

 the country it is apt to be totally or partly neglected. This is not a 

 precaution that should be left to the spasmodic or ill-instructed efforts 

 of local authorities ; there are so many ways in which bacteria, or 

 spores, may spread all over the country from the remotest focus that 

 the Local Government Board should have a staff to see that 

 proper disinfection is carried out wherever the necessity arises. The 

 timid man, fearing his cigarettes or his watercress, should insist upon 

 obtaining a pledge from every candidate who seeks his vote for 

 Parliament that no effort, in season or out of season, shall be spared 

 until a staff shall be appointed adequate to cope with every source of 

 infection as it arises in the country. 



Milk and Infection. 



Proper disinfection of every case of infectious disease is the only 

 means by which the spreading of bacteria may be stopped literally at 

 the fountain-heads. But of palliative measures the most important 

 is the proper supervision of the milk trade. When pathogenic 

 bacteria are distributed by clothing, by fruit, or by means of the wind* 

 no multiplication of their number occurs. Milk, on the other hand, 

 is a fluid containing nearly exactly such ingredients as would be 

 chosen in a laboratory when a fluid was being prepared for the 

 artificial cultivation of microbes. Again and again epidemics have 

 been shown to have gone round with the milkman. In a recent 

 number of the Forum, Dr. Nathan Straus has shown how the death- 

 rate of New York was lowered by the establishment of proper precau- 

 tions fot the sale of milk ; above all, success attended the sale of 

 sterilised milk. Young children are peculiarly unable to resist the 

 attacks of bacteria, and when fed upon milk that has incurred the 



