3i8 



PATHOGENIC BACTERIA IN MILK 



disease. During the illness the 

 medical attendant had ordered that 

 all discharges from the bowel and 

 bladder should be kept out of the 

 common privy of the farm-house and 

 buried somewhere outside the premises. 

 This was done, and the discharges, 

 without disinfection, were buried in 

 the ash-heap near the pigsty. On 

 1 2th August the son had typhoid. At 

 the inquiry special attention was paid 

 to discover whether it was possible 

 for soakage from the privy and drains 

 of the farm-house to obtain access to 

 the dairy well, and it was proved by 

 excavations that no such soakage 

 could occur. Yet soakage was 

 found to exist in the well wall, and 

 accordingly other sites of soakage 

 were investigated, and it was eventually 

 proved that soakage could only come 

 from the pigsty, along the foundation 

 of the yard wall, a distance of 25 feet. 

 But so effectually had this taken 

 place that the clay through which the 

 soakage had occurred was of the con- 

 sistence of soft paste. Against the 

 yard wall near the pigsty had been 

 deposited the undisinfected bowel 

 evacuations and chamber slops from 

 1st June to 8th June. Hence the two 

 primary difficulties, viz. : that the 

 patient did not suffer from typhoid 

 fever, and the drainage of the farm 

 had no connection with the well, were 

 surmounted, and it was proved that 

 the very precautions taken had set up 

 the pollution of the well. The out- 

 break was proved most clearly to be 

 due to (i) infected milk (2) from this 

 farm, and (3) by means of a pollution 

 through the water supply. 



Probable exciting cause. — Human 

 source. 



Reporter and reference. — Messrs 

 Radclifife and Power. Loc. Gov. Bd. 

 Rep.., 1874, pp. 103- 1 3 1. (The student 

 of milk epidemiology will find this 

 report one of the most illuminating on 

 record.) 



Great Coggeshall, 1876 (November). 



Total number of cases . . 28 

 Number of cases amongst 



drinkers of suspected milk . 28 



Percentage on total cases . . 100 



Number of polluted milk sources i 



Number of milkmen . . . i 



Circumstances affecting the milk 

 supply. — A young woman came home 

 from London with what turned out to 

 be typhoid fever. The slop water 

 (including the washings of the patient's 

 bed-linen which was saturated with 

 bowel discharges) were poured, with- 

 out disinfection, into a drain emptying 

 into the brook from which water was 

 regularly taken for dairying purposes, 

 a few yards from where the drain 

 emptied into it. 



Probable exciting cause. — Human 

 source — polluted water used for dairy- 

 ing purposes. 



Reporter. — Sir R. Thorne Thome, 

 F.R.S. (Loc. Gov. Bd.). 



Bolton, 1876. 



144 



Total number of cases 



Deaths 8 



Number of families supplied by 



milkman 50 



Number of such families invaded 47 



Percentage 94 



Circumstances implicating the milk 

 supply. — The disease followed unceas- 

 ingly the track of a certain milk supply 

 which had produced disease at Eagley. 

 Not one household to which the milk 

 was traced remained free from disease. 

 The outbreak was due to the drinking 

 of milk to which water which was con- 

 taminated with faecal matter had been 

 added. The question was also raised 

 as to the possibility of the milk having 

 obtained its infection from some disease 

 of the cow. 



Probable exciting cause. — Polluted 

 water used for dairying purposes. 



Reporter and reference. — W. H. 

 Power, F.R.S. and E. Serjeant. Brit. 



