THE MICROBE OF SCARLET FEVER 173 



fected food, milk, water. Such sources should be 

 specially guarded. An epidemic of this disease is 

 this moment sweeping over Boston. Over 300 

 cases are already reported. The Board of Health 

 has traced the disease to a certain milk route, and 

 ordered all milk on that route, the cans and other 

 utensils, sterilized before distributing another drop 

 of the milk. 



This route includes 2,000 families. The milk is 

 gathered from farms in Massachusetts and some 

 adjoining states. It may therefore be impractic- 

 able to trace the disease to the one original point 

 whence it started. But no doubt that one point 

 is a single case of scarlet fever in a certain farm- 

 house on a farm whence some of the milk was 

 gathered. The patient was not thoroughly quar- 

 antined, perhaps not quarantined at all. 

 Through ignorance or carelessness, or both, the 

 germs found their way to the milk cans, the water 

 in which the cans were washed; or the water from 

 which the cows drink. The milk gathered from 

 this farm thus became infected. It was delivered 

 with other milk on the route. Hence the Boston 

 epidemic. 



Had that single case of the fever been properly 

 quarantined, and the germs destroyed, all harm to 

 the Boston consumers would have been avoided. 



Beware! Draw the protective curtain about 

 every individual case. KILL THE GERMS ! ! 



