SCARLET FEVER 659 



five out of eleven cases of the disease in man. Klein 

 and Power concluded, therefore, that scarlet fever is 

 communicable to, and may exist in, cows, the milk thereby 

 becoming infected and conveying the disease to man, and 

 that a streptococcus is the specific infective agent. 



The Hendon outbreak was reinvestigated by Axe and 

 Crookshank. 1 Axe found that, so tar from there being 

 no source of human infection, cases of scarlet fever had 

 occurred near the dairy within a short time of the out- 

 break, and the eruptive disease of the cow was shown by 

 Crookshank to be cowpox, while the streptococcus 

 isolated by Klein he regarded as a variety of the S. 

 pyogenes. 



In 1909 a milk-borne epidemic occurred in certain 

 districts in London and Surrey, and was traced to milk 

 derived from one farm. The outbreak was investigated 

 and reported on by Hamer and Jones, who again traced 

 it to infection of the cows. Hunting 2 reviews the evidence 

 and shows how little there is to support this conclusion, 

 as there is no doubt that the family of one of the employees 

 on the farm were suffering from scarlatina. 



The existence of bovine scarlet fever is entirely dis- 

 credited by the veterinary profession, both here and on 

 the Continent. 



A streptococcus was also claimed by Gordon to be the 

 causal agent of scarlet fever, and Mair 3 isolated a diplo- 

 coccus which grew only on serum. On inoculation into 

 apes Dohle's bodies appear in the blood (Dohle's bodies 

 are small bodies in the leucocytes staining blue with 

 Leishman's stain. They are plentiful in scarlet fever, 

 but according to MacEwen are not confined to this 

 disease). 



1 On the Hendon outbreak, see Trans. Path. Soc. Lond., 1888 (Refs.). 



2 Journ. Roy. Sanitary Inst., vol. xxxii, 1911, p. 64. 



3 Journ. Path, and Bacter., vol. xix, 1915, p. 443, and vol. xx, 1916, p. 366. 



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