NATURE 
THURSDAY, JULY 8, 1886 
THE ETIOLOGY OF SCARLET FEVER 
aX REPORT has just been issued by the Medical 
Officer of the Local Government Board, the im- 
portance of which, as regards the etiology and prevention 
of a widespread infectious disease, deserves the most 
careful attention of sanitary officers and the general 
public alike. Hitherto the general assumption pre- 
vailed that infection with scarlet fever has always had its 
origin from the human subject, that is to say, that 
scarlet fever is always transmitted to the human sub- 
ject from a human being affected with the malady, 
either by direct contagion in its wider sense, or through 
milk, cream, &c., previously contaminated with the 
contagium derived from a human source. In the present 
Report we have an account of an extensive outbreak of 
scarlet fever in the north of London at the end of last 
and the beginning of the present year amongst the con- 
sumers of milk derived from a particular farm at Hendon. 
The first part of the Report of the Medical Officer con- 
tains an account by Mr. W. H. Power, Inspector to the 
Medical Department of the Local Government Board, of 
an investigation into this outbreak, and the evidence 
brought forward by Mr, Power is absolute and conclusive : 
it proves by a chain of circumstantial evidence as com- 
plete as can be wished, that this particular outbreak of 
scarlatina was transmitted by milk which could not have 
been previously contaminated from a human source. 
Moreover, Mr. Power proves that certain milch cows 
recently added to the dairy and affected with a particular 
malady were the source from which the contagium had 
been derived ; further, that as this malady once intro- 
duced by a few cows into the dairy spread to other 
milch cows, so the amount of milk containing the con- 
tagium, and also the number of cases of scarlatina 
amongst the consumers, increased, and as the milk-supply 
was discontinued so the spread of scarlet fever abated. 
The malady with which the cows were affected consisted 
chiefly in a particular kind of ulceration of the teats and 
udder, and perhaps some slight cutaneous disorder. As 
regards the general health, the feeding and milking capa- 
city, the cows seemed to present very little alteration. 
The second part of the Report contains an account, by 
Dr. Klein, of the minute pathology and etiology of this 
cow disease. In the first place, Dr. Klein ascertained 
that the local disease on the teats and udder is inoculable 
in its specific characters into healthy calves; secondly, 
that the cows affected with the local disease of the udder 
and teats were at the same time affected with a disease 
of the viscera, as proved by the Jost-mortem examination, 
in many respects similar to a mild form of scarlet fever 
in the human subject. 
From the ulcers of the cow Dr. Klein isolated by 
cultivation a streptococcus or chain-micrococcus, pos- 
sessed of distinct and special characters, both as to 
morphology and mode of growth in various nutritive 
media, particularly in milk: in this latter it grows in a 
peculiar manner, and very luxuriantly. With artificial 
cultures of this streptococcus a disease was produced in 
calyes by subcutaneous inoculation which bears a striking 
VOL, XxxIv.— No. 871 
213 
resemblance to scarlet fever in man. ‘The conclusion is 
thus forced on us that this streptococcus is identical with 
the materies morbi; further, that the scarlatina pro- 
duced in the human subject by the consumption of milk 
from the Hendon farm was an experiment, carried out on 
a large scale, of infection with a cultivation in milk of the 
above streptococcus; and lastly, that the milk of the 
cows affected with the specific ulcers of the teats and 
udders became charged with the contagium by the hands 
of the milker during the act of milking. Although there 
are many details still wanting to complete the research, 
particularly those regarding the transmissibility of scarla- 
tina from the human subject to the cow, there is sufficient 
evidence at hand already to warrant the hope that bya 
proper and effectual mode of superintending milk-farms 
it will be possible to considerably limit this dire scourge. 
A suggestion that at once presents itself is this: granted 
that the above-mentioned streptococcus is the real cause 
of the malady, there is no reason to doubt that boiling the 
milk would effectually destroy its life and infective power, 
just as is the case with all micrococci. True, the danger 
to contract scarlatina would hereby not be altogether 
annihilated, since cream cannot thus be disinfected, and 
since scarlet fever can unquestionably be contracted from 
a human source, but it must be obvious from this con- 
clusive Report that milk fer se coming from an infected 
cow plays a considerable 7é/e in conveying scarlatina 
from the cow to the human subject. 
OILS AND VARNISHES 
Oils, Resins, and Varnishes. Edited by James Cameron, 
F.I.C. (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1886 ) 
HIS work, according to the preface, is intended to be 
“4 hand-book useful to all interested in oils and 
varnishes, and especially to analysts, pharmacists, manu- 
facturers, and technological students.” The editor further 
states that in preparing this volume he used the informa- 
tion in Cooley’s “ Cyclopedia,” which he has “ supple- 
mented from the latest publications.” The modern litera- 
ture of oils and varnishes exists chiefly in the form of 
workshop recipes, in trade journals, technological diction- 
aries and pharmaceutical publications, and if anybody 
ever wanted to know anything about the useful and 
heterogeneous products comprised under these terms he 
not unfrequently found it necessary to waste a good deal 
of time in hunting up the required information. This last 
addition to Messrs. Churchill’s Technological Hand-books 
will therefore be valuable to those engaged in several 
distinct branches of industry, and the editor has certainly 
displayed considerable judgment in the selection and 
arrangement of the scattered materials which he has 
brought together in this little volume of some 370 pages 
in length. 
Chemically speaking the word “oil” has no precise 
meaning. It seems in fact that an oil may be anything 
that is not water, since we have oils among such distinct 
families of organic compounds as the alcohols, acids, 
aldehydes, hydrocarbons, &c. ‘Thus in Chapter I., on 
the “Chemistry of Oils,” these compounds are in the 
first place classed under the usual heads of “fixed” and 
“volatile.” Animal and vegetable fixed oils being gene- 
rally ethereal salts of glycerol and acids of the fatty and 
L 
