Contamination of Milk. 41 



The contamination of the milk may also occur 

 through the agency of a person acting as a nurse and 

 also handling the milk. The hands of the nurse are 

 easily soiled with the discharges of the patient, partic- 

 ularly the urine which often contains many typhoid 

 bacilli, some of which may thus find their way into the 

 milk. The patient after recovery still gives off typhoid 

 bacteria from his body for a longer or shorter period 

 and thus may serve to contaminate the milk. Such 

 people, known as "typhoid carriers," are one of the 

 most important means of spreading the disease. 



The ordinary house fly is one of the most common 

 means of infecting food with the typhoid bacillus. If 

 it has access to any infectious material, it may readily 

 carry the bacilli to the food in the kitchen or to the 

 milk in the barn or milk house. The privy vault 

 should be so arranged that flies can not enter it. The 

 dwelling house and also the milk house should be pro- 

 vided with screens at the doors and windows. 



In order to prevent the spread of typhoid fever all 

 discharges from the patients should be thoroughly dis- 

 infected. No one who has anything to do with a 

 typhoid patient should have anything to do with the 

 milk in any way directly or indirectly. The patient, 

 after recovery, should not handle dairy products or 

 have anything to do with milk utensils until the con- 

 sent of a physician is obtained. This should be the in- 

 variable practice on the farm, in the cheese-factory, the 

 creamery and in the city milk-depot, for experience has 

 shown that a single case of typhoid has often been the 

 means of infecting the milk supply, thus producing 

 widespread epidemics. There is no danger of trans- 



