178 INFECTIOUS AND PARASITIC DISEASES. 



and many workers harbor intestinal parasites. Need 

 more be said of the probability of disease being served 

 at our tables with fresh fruits and vegetables? Could 

 the egg of a tape- worm find a more toothsome vehicle ? 

 And yet there are those who insist on eating berries 

 unwashed because they lose a little flavor in the wash- 

 ing! 



Some articles of food are more favorable to the growth 

 of bacteria than others. Milk is the best. This is 

 unfortunate, because, besides being a natural food for 

 children and the greatest boon in sickness, it is next 

 to bread the most-used article of diet. Because it 

 furnishes such an excellent pabulum for bacteria, it is a 

 frequent vehicle by which they are carried. Sickness 

 in a milker, or in a dairyman's family, or the washing 

 of milk-cans in polluted water, has time and again 

 caused epidemics of scarlet fever, diphtheria, and 

 typhoid fever, a fact which calls for the enactment of 

 rigid laws regulating the production, handling, and 

 sale of milk, and severe penalties for infractions of this 

 law. 



For a long time it has been the custom, when a few 

 cases of typhoid fever occur in a community, to imme- 

 diately impugn the character of the water-supply. 

 This attitude of mind is a legacy of the time when pol- 

 luted water was believed to be the only source of this 

 infection. Where large numbers of cases occur, and 

 especially if they are not limited to one neighborhood, 



