BACTERIA IN MILK. 213 



from all fever patients. Typhoid fever is, in its early stages, 

 such an obscure disease that it may not be recognized. The 

 only safeguard is to make it absolutely impossible for the 

 drainings from the privy vault to contaminate, by any possi- 

 bility, the water used in the dairy, and to have milk handled 

 only by healthy individuals. Accidents may of course happen, 

 but if the milk-producer remembers these few facts he will be 

 far less likely to furnish contaminated milk to the city than he 

 has been in the past. 



Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria. There is good evidence that 

 these two diseases may be distributed by milk and that some 

 epidemics are attributable to the milk supply. Very little is 

 however, actually known in regard to the matter. The cause 

 of scarlet fever is yet uncertain, and it is not known whether 

 cows can contract the disease and then produce milk already 

 contaminated, or whether, as in typhoid fever, the contamina- 

 tion of the milk is wholly secondary. A few epidemics of 

 scarlet fever have been traced to milk with more or less cer- 

 tainty. It is pretty certain that the milk may become infected 

 with the cause of this disease by secondary contamination, and 

 the farmer should consequently take precautions to prevent a 

 case of scarlet fever on the farm from becoming a cause of 

 contamination to the milk. 



Diphtheria is produced by a bacillus which is well known. 

 But here again there seems some doubt whether cows have 

 the disease. On the whole the evidence seems to show that 

 the diphtheria bacillus may produce certain local infections in 

 cows and possibly thus infect their milk. It is certain, how- 

 ever, that the milk may become secondarily infected througli 

 convalescent diphtheria patients working in the dairy and 

 handling the milk. Some instances of diphtheria have been 

 traced to uch a cause. 



Cholera. There is good evidence that cholera may be dis- 

 tributed by milk ; but this disease is so rare and so unlikely to 



