68 CITY MILK SUPPLY 



Buttermilk is commonly sold soon after it is made, so that while it 

 undoubtedly is to a considerable degree antagonistic to typhoid germs, the 

 possibility of its containing them must be conceded. Fraenkel and 

 Kister believed that the unusual amount of typhoid fever at Hamburg, 

 Germany, in 1897 was in part due to infected buttermilk. Heinemann 

 found that acids other than lactic acid are frequently present in butter- 

 milk. Since these acids may not be as strongly germicidal as lactic 

 acid, it should be looked upon with suspicion, especially if heavily pol- 

 luted, unless prepared from pasteurized milk. Still, the chance of but- 

 termilk becoming the carrier of infection is much less than of raw sweet 

 milk. "The presence of saprophytic bacteria in buttermilk may have 

 some influence on pathogenic bacteria. Whether this influence is favor- 

 able or otherwise is difficult to determine by present bacteriological 

 methods." 



Typhoid bacilli have been shown to be recoverable from artificially 

 infected cheese after some 3 weeks. The period would probably vary 

 with the type of cheese. Unless cheese should be made of infected milk 

 and eaten soon afterward as cottage cheese and some others might be, 

 there is little likelihood of contracting typhoid from this source. 



Paratyphoid Fever. Paratyphoid fever is spread in the same way 

 that typhoid fever is. Dr. F. G. Curtis reported an outbreak of the dis- 

 ease in Newton, Mass., in 1912. In all there were 25 known and three 

 probable cases; of the known cases; 15 gave positive agglutination tests 

 with oi-paratyphoid bacilli. Everyone of the 25 patients used the sus- 

 pected milk. The original infection of the milk occurred on one of the 

 dairy farms that supplied the implicated route but there was reason for 

 believing that later some of the milk was infected by an employee of the 

 retailer, who had contracted the fever by drinking the infected milk from 

 the dairy farm. In the affected communities no cases of typhoid fever 

 and no other cases of paratyphoid fever were reported within the period 

 under consideration. 



At Ames, Iowa, there occurred a milk-borne epidemic of paratyphoid 

 fever in which the patients' sera indicated B. paratyphosus ft as the infect- 

 ing organism. Ten cases were discovered and nine of the patients were 

 patrons of a single milk dealer. The primary source of the contagion 

 was held to be either a carrier or a convalescent. 



Asiatic Cholera. Asiatic cholera is caused by Sp. cholerce which is 

 discharged in the feces of the sick and of carriers; it is readily spread by 

 fingers soiled with such evacuations, by flies and in every way by which 

 transfers are made of even infinitesimal amounts of infected matter, 

 to food and to other objects that afterward find their way to the 

 mouth of man. It is man-borne and dogs the footstep of pilgrims, 

 caravans, emigrants and armies. It is often spread from port to port 

 by carriers. Drinking water is frequently infected with it and has 



