BACTERIA IX MILK. 211 



Tuberculosis. If milk is drawn from a cow suffering with 

 udder tuberculosis it will be almost sure to contain the tubercle 

 bacilli, and if this milk is subsequently drunken by a suscep- 

 tible person it may give rise to a case of this dread disease. 

 This matter is more fully discussed in a later chapter and need 

 not be considered here. 



Typhoid Fever. Inasmuch as the cow is not subject to 

 typhoid fever, milk, when freshly drawn, can contain no typhoid 

 bacilli. This disease, therefore, bears quite a different relation 

 to dairy matters from tuberculosis. Milk, if infected with 

 tuberculosis bacilli, contains them when freshly drawn, and 

 secondary infection is a matter of no significance. But fresh 

 milk never contains typhoid bacilli and if they are present in 

 the milk they come wholly from secondary contamination. 

 The chief source of such secondary contamination we have 

 already considered when referring to the bacteria in water ; for 

 this chief source is doubtless a well, or perhaps a stream of 

 water, that has become contaminated with the excreta from 

 typhoid patients. But water is not the only source for the 

 contamination of milk with typhoid bacilli. In some cases the 

 milk contamination has been traced to the fact that the milk 

 has been cared for by some one who has been nursing a 

 typhoid patient, or has handled the discharges or the soiled 

 linen from such patients. In one case it is claimed that milk 

 was contaminated by simply standing in the room of such a 

 patient. There is little question that any one who has any 

 intimate contact with a typhoid patient may carry away the 

 germs of this disease and, if employed in the dairy, will be 

 likely to transfer some of them to the milk. It cannot be too 

 strongly emphasized that no person, on a farm who has any- 

 tJiing to do in caring for a typhoid patient sliould be allowed to 

 Jiai'c any contact with t/ic dairy. In no other way can the 

 farmer be sure that he is not subjecting the community that 

 consumes his milk to serious danger. 



