DISEASES COMMUNICABLE IN MILK 89 



nate from direct contact or in other ways. Savage says that in some 

 epidemics of scarlet fever spread by milk that a number of cases have 

 shown so few symptoms of the disease that apart from their relationship 

 to other and undoubted cases a certain diagnosis of scarlet fever would 

 not be possible, and quotes Newsholme on the scarlet fever epidemic at 

 Brighton, England, in 1902 and Buchanan on the outbreak at Kensington, 

 England, in 1875. He points out that in the acute infectious diseases 

 the smallest percentage invasion of households is met with in scarlet 

 fever outbreaks and says that it would probably be higher if the atypical 

 cases, mainly or exclusively with symptoms of sore throat, were included. 

 Savage also thinks contact cases less frequent in milk-borne outbreaks 

 than in those having other origins. 



Touching milk-borne typhoid fever, Newman says that the incubation 

 period is shortened, attacks are often mild, contact infectivity reduced 

 and the mortality rate lower than usual. 



Injury Done by Milk-borne Epidemics. The damage done by the 

 contagion that is spread by milk cannot be accurately gaged. The 

 amount of milk that becomes infected as compared with that produced 

 is very small and were it to be considered in that light only could be 

 disregarded but every epidemic stands for a definite amount of human 

 misery and loss which added to that sustained in epidemics that have 

 gone before makes a sum that compels "attention. Boston, Mass., 

 despite the fact it has a very fair milk supply, has had the following record 

 of milk-borne contagion: 



Cases 

 1907, diphtheria 72 



1907, scarlet fever 717 



1908, typhoid fever . 400 



1910, scarlet fever 842 



1911, septic sore throat 2,064 



4,095 



Such a series of epidemics is unusual but in almost every community 

 where raw milk is bought and sold something of the kind is going on, so 

 that the situation should be frankly faced and dealt with, without either 

 minimizing the danger or exaggerating it. 



The loss that contagion causes is felt all along the line from the 

 consumer's home to the farm. To begin with there is the anguish of 

 the stricken family and the sufferings of the victims. A 10 days' illness 

 is succeeded by longer convalescence during which time bills for medi- 

 cines, the nurse and the doctor accumulate, and if death ensues the 

 expenses of the funeral are added. If the wage-earner contracts the 

 disease his earning power for the time being is gone. So that advent of 

 contagion in a home is serious and may even bring a family from a self- 

 sustaining condition to a dependent one. The retailer is likely to suffer 



