338 PATHOGENIC BACTERIA IN MILK 



Power, and also, experimentally, by Dr Klein. The facts elicited 

 and theories propounded, brought the whole question to the front. 

 Mr Power found that 84 per cent, of the invaded houses used the 

 implicated milk, and 88-5 per cent of the total number of persons 

 attacked (140) were consumers of the milk. Ninety-three percent, 

 of the 140 were attacked within the same ten days, and the severity 

 of the attacks appeared to be determined by the amount of milk 

 consumed. The outbreak mostly affected better-class persons. 



The Question of Bovine Diphtheria 



The investigation, however, was remarkable not only for its 

 collected evidence of milk implication, but for the further fact that 

 Mr Power found that two of the cows from which the infective milk 

 had been derived showed some slight signs of" scabs " and " chaps " 

 on the teats. There was evidence that these abnormal conditions of 

 the teats had occurred both at a time anterior to, and simultaneous 

 with, the outbreak of diphtheria. Somewhat similar evidence was 

 forthcoming in other subsequent outbreaks. The question there- 

 fore arose as to whether the cows could suffer from diphtheria or 

 some modified form of that disease, and by means of their milk 

 convey the disease to man. 



In this connection, Dr Klein undertook some experiments 

 to ascertain whether or not diphtheria was inoculable into cows. 

 He took for the experiment two healthy milch cows which had 

 calved some Jthree or four weeks previously. One c.c. of broth 

 culture of B. diphtheri<^ (derived from human diphtheritic mem- 

 brane) was injected . under the skin into the subcutaneous tissue 

 of the left shoulder in each of the two cows. Two or three 

 days after the inoculation [a) the temperature rose to 40-6° C, 

 and the animals suffered from slight general malaise. On the 

 third day (^) a tumour appeared at the site of inoculation, which 

 steadily increased in size to the seventh day. On the fifth day 

 {c) papular eruption appeared on the udder and hind teat. In 

 addition to the papules there were half a dozen vesicles, and some 

 round patches covered with brown crusts. The process of eruption 

 was mature by the eighth day. In the lymph of the vesicles and 

 pustules the B. diphtherice could be demonstrated, according to 

 Klein, both microscopically and by culture. He therefore concluded 

 that the B. diphtherics, as such, inoculated into the shoulder of the 

 cow, was received into the general system of the cow, and produced 

 its effects, not in the viscera, but on the udder as a specific erup- 



