MASTITIS BACTERIA 95 



sides, it is highly probable that the pus itself may be 

 harmful if it is taken by small children. The greatest 

 weight, however, is to be placed on the possibility that 

 the bacteria contained in the mastitis milk may cause 

 disease in man, if they are taken into the digestive canal. 

 We know that staphylococci and streptococci which have 

 reached the human digestive canal in other ways have 

 sometimes proven to be most virulent, and we may sup- 

 pose that the same is true of mastitiscocci and possibly 

 also of the coli-aerogenic forms. 



Inflammation of the udder is a very common condi- 

 tion of the cow and, therefore, it might be expected that 

 there would be frequent opportunity to observe the 

 harmful effect of infected milk upon man. That this is 

 not the case may be due partly to the relatively low 

 virulence of some of the mastitis bacteria for man, and 

 because it is only in the rarest cases that it is possible 

 for the physician to gain sufficient information to trace 

 the special disease of his patient to the use of milk, and 

 then to trace this to a certain diseased cow. Further, 

 there is the fact that most milk for small children is used 

 boiled, so that the bacteria present have, for the most 

 part been killed.^* As examples of the danger of using 

 the milk from cows with mastitis, the following cases of 

 disease may be mentioned : 



1. In Christiana, in 1894, A. Hoist observed acute 

 catarrh of the stomach and intestines in four adults and 

 four children, who lived in three separate houses. They 

 had all drunk milk some hours before the attack. Those 

 members of the household who had taken little, or boiled, 

 milk remained in good health. The milk in question had 

 a normal appearance, but was slightly acid and con- 

 tained masses of short or long streptococci. The milk 



^' In Denmark, as in other countries of Continental Europe, very 

 little raw milk is fed to children. [L. P.] 



