DR MICHAEL TAYLOR'S INVESTIGATIONS 261 



business was carried on. J. C. kept four cows, which were gener- 

 ally milked by his wife, who also nursed the child suffering from 

 scarlet fever. The milk was brought direct from the byre to the 

 back kitchen of the cottage, where it was strained in the usual way, 

 and then distributed to some fourteen families. Fifteen cases of 

 scarlet fever followed in six of the families supplied by the milk, and a 

 number of secondary infections also occurred. Here, again, Dr Taylor 

 was able, after minute inquiry, to discover that the milk itself became 

 in some way infected in the cottage, and so conveyed the disease.^ 



Such then, in a few words, is the histor}"- of the two first, com- 

 paratively small, outbreaks of which we have record, one of typhoid 

 fever and one of scarlet fever, traceable to milk. The views of the 

 investigator as to the relationship borne between a specific disease, 

 such as typhoid fever, and the contamination of milk or water, 

 became a matter of grave import Finally, he concluded that 

 specific contamination of milk " may occur either from the soiling 

 of the hands, or from direct admixture of the exuvise or discharges 

 with liquids, or vessels used by the patient, by the drying up of 

 these discharges, or the dissemination of their poisonous elements 

 either in the form of dust, or by particles of dust already existing 

 in the apartment acting as carriers of the infected germs, which, 

 when absorbed by liquids, by adhering to clothes, or by currents of 

 air, might be carried to distant quarters." These words were 

 written before the days of bacteriology, and even before the date of 

 the publication of Tyndall's researches on floating matter in the 

 air ; and yet some of the most modern ideas of infection are fore- 

 shadowed in them, as indeed they were likewise foreshadowed in 

 the work of Budd, Simon, Burdon-Sanderson, and others. 



Dr Michael Taylor's investigations at Penrith form then the 

 opening page in a chapter of public health, which has proved to be 

 one not only of exceptional interest, but of vital importance. For 

 not only has much been learned in the observance of the behaviour 

 of zymotic diseases conveyed by milk, but not a little also of the 

 potentiality of milk, and of the milk trade where not properly con- 

 ducted, to carry disease. This record of nearly half a century's 

 progress in a single department of research and inquiry, naturally 

 divides itself into two main periods in correspondence with two 

 main steps in the record. First, there was the accumulated evi- 

 dence of milk conveyance, that is,' there was evidence that milk 

 might, and did on occasion, obtain infective properties from huvian 

 sources. This knowledge was derived not from any discovery in 

 ^ Brit. Med. Jour., 1870, vol. ii., pp. 623-625. 



