MT 
SEDGWICK AND WIXSLOW. — BAriLLUS OF TVnJOID FEVFR, ^73 
An epidemic of typhoid fever wlilcli attacked over 800 persons In tlio eounty of 
Renfrew, in Scotland, in 1893, was atlriljuted by Dr. A. C. Mnnro i.artly to ic . -.naui 
and partly to the public water-supply .<»> Out of the first 180 casc^ 03 w.tc shown to 
have eaten Ice-cream prepared by a dealer In whose family a c;uso of lyplioid f<n 
had occurred during the previous month. Tlic patient had been in Inlimale confnrt 
with the ice-cream business during the greater part of her illnesR. 
Vaughan and Perkins, in ]895/^^> ascribed two epidemlrs of sevciv, but not fiifal, 
intestinal disease to a new pathogenic bacillus which they isolated fioiii Ice-cro:un In 
one case and from cheese in the other. The germ belonged to the colon gn)np, iuu] 
the authors note that neither twenty-nine days of continuous freezing nor allernntc 
freezing and thawing could destroy Its vitality. 
Dr. Hope, in 1898,^"^ studied an epidemic afYecting 27 school children in Liverpool 
in which the only clue appeared to be the presence of all the patioiHH at a fair juhl at 
the time of infection. Here 24 of the children had eafen ice-cream nnd (wo more 
r 
had partaken of "chip" potatoes sold by an Italian In whose house there Ijad Immh 
two cases of typhoid fever. 
In these cases of Infection from Ice-cream there Is, of course, no cerfalnfy llial the 
disease germs were actually frozen. The possibility of contamination from spoon,'?, 
vessels, and the hands of the vendor might easily account for all the plienomonn. 
Even if the infection was really carried In the ice-cream the expfwure to a low 
temperature must have been a relatively short one. The same reasoning applies to 
the famous Plymouth, Pa., epidemic of typhoid fever. This little mining town had 
1200 cases of the disease and 130 deaths amonsr its 8000 inhabitants in 1885, and the 
fl 
o 
Investigation ^^^^ clearly traced the infection to the dejecta of a single typhoid fei 
patient which were thrown out on the snow on the banks of the brook pn]>plyi 
the town with water, and which had been washed in by the fir.st general thaw of \ 
spring. It may easily have been that the discharges thrown out during the day 
two preceding the thaw were never really frozen at all. In any ca'^e the conditi* 
affectincr jrerms imbedded in a solid mass of rich food material are quite difTtn 
o o 
from those which obtain in the formation of ice ui.on a stream or pond 
B. BACTERIA IN NATURAL ICE, SNOW, AND HAIL, AND IN irE-CREAM. 
Tn spite of the absence of epidemiological evidence, it has been the common 
opinion of sanitarians that ice might be an important source of infection for typhoid 
fever or any other germ disease. Its apparent purity was shown by the earh^t 
bacteriologists to be deceptive. Burdon-Sanderson,^'^' In 1871, found that liquid 
