42 



NATURE 



[May 14, 1908 



are 200,000 inhabitants, there must be 20,000 goats. 

 Floclis of them wander about the streets from morning 

 until night, and are milked as required at the customers' 

 doors tFig. 5). 



It must be confessed there seemed little hope that an 

 examination of these animals would yield any result. 

 The goats appeared perfectly healthy, and they have the 

 reputation of being little susceptible to disease of any kind. 



To put the matter to the test several goats were inocu- 

 lated with the micrococcus, and the result watched. 

 There was no rise of temperature, no sign of ill-health in 

 any vi'ay, but in a week or two the blood was found to 

 be capable of agglutinating the specific micro-organism. 



This raised our suspicions, and a small herd of appar- 

 ently healthy goats was then procured and their blood 

 examined to see if they were all healthy. Several of 

 them were found to react naturally to the agglutination 

 test, and this led to the e.xamination and the discovery of 

 the Micrococcus melitensis in their blood, urine, and milk. 



Micrococci in Goats' Milk. 



Some thousands of goats in Malta were then examined, 

 and the astounding discovery was made that 50 per cent. 

 of the goats responded to the agglutination test, and that 



Fig. 6. — Charts of incidence a nong th; soldiers in 1899-1905, and 1905. 



actually 10 per cent, of them were secreting and excreting 

 the micrococci in their milk. 



Monkeys fed on milk from an affected goat, even for 

 one day, almost invariably took the disease. 



s.s. Joshua Nicholson. 



At this time, curiously enough, an important experi- 

 ment on the drinking of goats' milk by man took place 

 accidentally. Shortly, the story is as follows : — In 1905 

 the s.s. Joshua Nicholson shipped sixty-five goats at Malta 

 for export to America. The milk was drunk in large 

 quantities by the captain and the crew, with the result 

 that practically everyone who drank the milk was struck 

 down by Malta fever. 



Sixty of the goats (five having died) on arrival in 

 .America were examined, and thirty-two found to give the 

 agglutination reaction, while tlie Micrococcus melitensis 

 was isolated from the millc of several of them. This 

 epidemic of Malta fever on board the s.s. Joshua Nichol- 

 son therefore clinched the fact that the goats of Malta 

 act as a reservoir of the virus of Malta fever, and that 

 man is infected by drinlving the millc of these animals. 



Epidemiological Features. 



Here, then, at last was discovered a mode of infection 

 which e.xplains the curious features of Malta fever — the 



NO. 20II, VOL. 7SI 



irregular seasonal prevalence, the number of cases which 

 occur during the winter months, when there are no mos- 

 quitoes and little dust. It is true there are more cases 

 in summer than in winter, but this may be explained by 

 the fact that more milk is used at that time of the year 

 for fruit, in ice-creams, &x. It also explains the fact that 

 officers are more liable than the men, as the former con- 

 sume more milk than the latter. It also e.xplains the 

 liability of hospital patients, milk entering so largely into 

 a hospital dietary. 



Result of Measures Directed ag.unst the Use of 

 Goats' Milk. 



As soon as goats' milk was discovered to be the source 

 of infection, preventive measures were begun. The result 

 is very striking, as is shown in the charts thrown on the 

 screen, which give the number of cases of Malta fever 

 among the soldiers in the garrison before and after the 

 preventive measures came into action. 



Here is a chart of the incidence of Malta fever among 

 the soldiers each month before the preventive measures 

 were put into force (Fig. 6). 



And here is another showing the incidence of this fever 



ARMY 

 1907. 



A/AW. 

 1907. 



//c GA$es. 



Fig. 7.— Charts of incidence among ihe soldier% and sailor.:, 1907. 



among the soldiers and sailors in Malta since goats' milk 

 has been banished from their dietary (Fig. 7). 



With this chart, which shows the practical extinction of 

 Malta fever, my discourse comes to a close 



RUSSIAN TRANSLITERATION. 

 "T^HE system of transliteration from Russian generally 

 adopted in British libraries and scientific biblio- 

 graphies is that first published in Nature on February 27, 

 1890. It was the result of consultation by a committee 

 of which the secretaries were Prof. Miers and the writer. 

 This system was intended to satisfy the need for some 

 uniform practice, and it was based on the principle that 

 no system of transliteration from Russian would be suit- 

 able for bibliographic work unless every word may be re- 

 transliterated into the original Russian spelling, so that it 

 may be found in a dictionary. It was accordingly neces- 

 sary that each Russian character should have one constant 

 equivalent, and that the equivalents should be so arranged 

 that the same combination of letters should not result 

 from different Russian characters. It was also considered 

 advisable to use accents as little as possible. Phonetic 

 considerations and elegance in appearance were regarded 

 as unimportant in comparison with the main requirements 

 of certaintv in re-transliteration. 



