534 A MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY 



five out of eleven cases of the disease in man. The con- 

 clusions which Klein and Power came to were, 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 far 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 so-called streptococcus 

 of scarlet fever he regarded as a variety of the S. pyogenes. 

 The existence of bovine scarlet fever is entirely discredited 

 by the veterinary profession, both here and on the Continent. 



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. 



Scarlatina seems to be inoculable in the chimpanzee 

 and some of the lower apes. It is now regarded as being 

 caused by a filter-passer. 



Gordon 3 reinvestigated the bacteriology of scarlatina with 

 special reference to the Streptococcus scarlatince or conglomeratus 

 of Klein. He found that this organism differs distinctly in its 

 cultural characters from other varieties of streptococci, and that 

 it occurs constantly in the mucous secretion on the surface of the 

 tonsils and fauces and in the nasal, but not in the aural, discharge 



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



2 Journ. Roy. Sanitary Inst., vol. xxxii, 1911, p. 62. 



3 (a) Rep. Med. Off. LOG. Gov. Board for 1898-99, p. 480 ; (b) ibid. 

 for 1899-1900, p. 385. 



