DISEASES COMMUNICABLE IN MILK 79 



are believed to have come from washing cans in polluted water. Eleven 

 of the cases were supplied by one dairyman who received milk from 

 several farms. In the family of one of them, were two cases of typhoid 

 and of another three. At one of the farms a pail used for discharges of 

 the patients was kept on the curb of a well the water of which was used 

 to wash cans. At York, Pa., in 1899, 66 cases of typhoid fever and 14 

 deaths were caused by milk that is believed to have been infected by 

 washing cans in the water of a spring near which typhoid dejecta were 

 thrown. 



An epidemic in 1892 at Springfield, Mass., of 125 cases of typhoid 

 fever was attributed to milk which had been cooled in a polluted well by 

 sinking the cans to the bottom where they were covered by 3 or 4 ft. of 

 water and remained for hours at a time. As the stopples did not fit 

 tight the cans filled with the polluted water. While this is rather a gross 

 example of the careless cooling of milk no one who has observed the 

 manner and places of cooling milk on many dairy farms can doubt that 

 a warning against this sort of carelessness is needed. At Palo Alto, 

 Cal., in 1903, out of 900 customers of one dairy 232 had typhoid fever and 

 all but 16 of these cases were primary; the milk cans were washed and 

 the milk adulterated with water from a sewage-polluted creek. 



But one epidemic, that at Hartford, Conn., is attributed to the 

 use of infected ice in the dairy; it is doubtful if even this case would 

 bear close scrutiny in the light of the most recent knowledge of the ways 

 in which contagion is transmissible. Ice is an unfavorable medium for 

 bacteria; it has been shown that 40 per cent, of the typhoid bacilli die 

 within 3 hr. after freezing and 98 per cent, in 2 weeks. Still, such in- 

 fection is conceivable and at the time the epidemic was investigated it 

 was believed to be due to the ice which was cut on a contaminated pond. 

 There were 30 cases and four deaths from typhoid fever among the cus- 

 tomers of the dairy and they occurred only among those that used the 

 evening milk. This milk was submerged over night in ice water; it was 

 only a little while before the epidemic began that this ice was used. 



Occasionally the infection is brought to the farm by children or 

 visitors. At Rockford, 111., in 1913, a dairy route was thought possibly 

 to have been infected by a neighbor's child who had walking typhoid 

 fever and who was permitted to cap the milk bottles. In Norwalk, Conn., 

 a scarlet fever outbreak appeared in 1897 that was due to an infected milk 

 supply. The contagion was traced to one of three dairy farms that 

 supplied the Norwalk dealer. It seems that there had been a contact 

 epidemic of scarlet fever in the district school and that among those who 

 caught the disease were two children that lived near the dairy farm. 

 The cases were very mild and the youngsters visited the farm and played 

 with the dairyman's child who ultimately took the fever. The milk was 

 believed to have been infected in some way by the children. 



