HENDON OUTBREAK 285 



being milked by hand or is suckling her calf. The teat sores 

 show themselves after an incubation period of from four to 

 nine days from the inoculation, and subsequently a more general 

 affection of the skin is found, accompanied by more or less 

 febrile disturbance, sometimes by pulmonary symptoms. In the 

 disease thus induced a number of changes are found after death 

 distributed among various organs in the fashion of the changes 

 of an acute specific disease, and exhibiting so much of con- 

 stancy in their own manifestation as to make the whole of them 

 characteristic of cow scarlatina ; and the post-7nortem appearances 

 found in animals affected by this disease bear much resemblance 

 in essentials to those found in human subjects dying of scarla- 

 tina. As regards the particular phenomena on the skin of animals 

 thus affected, it is interesting to note that the sores on the teats 

 appear to be with difficulty, if at all, transmissible by direct 

 inoculation from the infected animal to man. This circumstance 

 was hardly perhaps to be anticipated, seeing that other sore-teat 

 diseases are so communicable, and how readily cow scarlatina at 

 Hendon reproduced itself as human scarlatina in the consumers of 

 milk from infected cows." ^ 



Such were the views entertained upon this matter by Dr Klein 

 and Mr Power as representative of the Local Government Board, 

 and with a large number of persons these views found acceptance. 

 The veterinary profession and certain pathologists, however, were 

 not prepared to accept the matter as proved. Accordingly, further 

 investigations were instituted by the authorities of the Agricultural 

 Department of the Privy Council (now merged in Board of Agri- 

 culture), and as a result certain further propositions were formu- 

 lated which placed a different interpretation upon the causes of 

 the outbreak. These we must briefly consider. 



At the outset it may be remarked that two cardinal facts were 

 accepted both by the Local Government Board and by the Agri- 

 cultural Department, namely, first, that the epidemic of scarlet 

 fever was due to contamination of the milk supply ; and second, 

 that some of the cows on the Hendon farms were suffering from 

 disease. As to these two facts there was no controversy. Dis- 

 cussion, however, arose as to the relation between the cow disease 

 and the milk-borne scarlet fever, it being contended by the Agri- 

 cultural Department that no relationship was proved between these 

 two events, and that, in point of fact, reliable evidence was not 



* Seventeenth Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1887-88 

 (Medical Officer's Supplement), pp. xiii. and xiv. 



