186 BACTERIA IN AIR, SOIL, WATER AND MILK 



Scarlet fever, although its cause is unknown, is known to 

 spread along milk routes and has at times been traced to a 

 case on a dairy farm. Foot-and-mouth disease of cattle, 

 another condition of unknown etiology, has been found in 

 children drinking milk from affected cows. The bacillus of 

 diphtheria may live in milk a long time and may be carried 

 along a milk route. It is said that cholera may be trans- 

 mitted by milk contaminated with polluted water. 



Typhoid Fever. Typhoid fever may be transmitted by 

 milk when a case exists on a dairy farm or a dairyman uses 

 polluted water to wash his cans. In perfectly fresh milk the 

 germs do not thrive, although they are not destroyed, but 

 when a little older the milk offers no resistance to their 

 multiplication. If sour, the lactic acid and alcohol not only 

 inhibit their growth, but actually kill them. It is frequently 

 in the period from cooling to distribution and use that con- 

 tamination occurs. This is done by the hands of dairymen, 

 shippers, tasters (dipping the finger into the milk), or by 

 domestic servants. Carriers of typhoid bacilli are a prolific 

 source of epidemic spread by milk. One of the carriers men- 

 tioned on page 110 went to work on the dairy farm of her 

 brother immediately after the death of her husband. In 

 three weeks twenty-eight cases of typhoid broke out on the 

 farm and among those using its milk. Although some sani- 

 tarians discredit the milk transmission of typhoid, the 

 following observation is very significant when taken together 

 with the fact that the Bacillus typhosus has been found in 

 milk. There is a relatively greater number of women and 

 children affected in milk-borne epidemics, while in water and 

 general epidemics more men are affected. Pasteurization 

 easily kills the typhoid bacillus. 



Tuberculosis. The question of the transmission of tuber- 

 culosis by milk is one that has raised much discussion, since 

 Koch said that the bovine type of bacillus does not produce 

 tuberculosis in human beings. The matter seems settled 

 now that tuberculosis in the young may be caused by the 



