TYPHOID FEVER 107 



number of epidemics during recent years, may be pointed 

 out that can be traced with more or less certainty to 

 infection through milk, or with which milk was con- 

 cerned in the great spread of the contagion. Dr. Caroe 22 

 has reported about 90 large and small typhoid epidemics 

 which occurred outside of Copenhagen during the period 

 from 1878-96 and which probably were due to infection 

 from milk, also 5 milk epidemics which occurred in 

 Copenhagen during the years 1879-1895. In 1900, no 

 less than 3 milk epidemics occurred in Copenhagen, and 

 it does not appear that these were related to each other. 

 The sanitary inspector, A. Ulrik, 23 made a detailed re- 

 port on these outbreaks, and since they show very char- 

 acteristically the conditions that occur in milk epidem- 

 ics, they are cited as examples. 



In the first epidemic, the cases were grouped about 

 a city milch herd and the two sales places connected 

 with it. Some cases of typhoid appeared in this quar- 

 ter of the city in August, but the origin of these was not 

 perfectly clear. At this time, a saleswoman in charge 

 of one of the milk shops became ill of typhoid fever and 

 was taken to the hospital. It was discovered that she 

 had suffered with severe diarrhoea for about fourteen 

 days but she had not been under the physician's care 

 until high fever developed. By degrees, 35 cases in all 

 broke out, among them the woman in charge of the other 

 milk shop and these cases were, in part, traced directly 

 to infective milk ; in part they must have originated from 

 contagion carried from one person to another. It was 

 found during the time that the disease prevailed that the 

 milk had twice been infective at the beginning and in 

 the middle of August but it was not possible to prove 

 the exact channel through which bacilli entered. 



- Tidsskrift for Sundhespleje, VI, 1898. 

 23 Tiddskrift for Sundhespleje, VIII, 1901. 



