100 MILK HYGIENE 



by FoUenius and Gaffky.^^ It is as follows : In the lab- 

 oratory of hygiene at Giessen, two assistants and a ser- 

 vant became very ill after drinking raw milk which was 

 proven to have come from a cow with hemorrhagic ente- 

 ritis. The symptoms were headache, weakness and diar- 

 rhoea. In the servant, the disease seemed to resemble 

 cholera, with the others it was more like typhoid fever. 

 Gaffky isolated from the faeces of the sick persons, as 

 well as from the faeces of the cow, a member of the colon 

 group which grew rapidly and was very virulent. The 

 organism was the same in all cases. 



It is probable that a case of disease mentioned by 

 Eehn,^' was caused in a similar way. A child two and a 

 quarter years old was attacked by a typhoid-like disease 

 after drinking raw milk, which was rich in colon bacilli. 

 He recovered in the course of five weeks. A sister some- 

 what older had a lighter attack. 



As, doubtless, every case of such virulent enteritis 

 of cattle offers opportunity for the infection of the milk 

 with pathogenic bacteria, which apparently are virulent 

 for man, every animal affected with a severe, bloody or 

 febrile diarrhoea, should be removed from the stable at 

 once. The contaminated part of the stable should be 

 carefully cleansed and disinfected. If a number of cases 

 of the disease occur, the sale of the milk of the whole 

 herd must be prohibited, for a longer or shorter time. 



In this connection, observations by A. Hoist ^" con- 

 cerning cases of poisoning through " pultost " (a kind 

 of cheese) should be mentioned, since the bacillus found 

 belongs to the same group, although it is not proven that 

 its occurrence in the cheese was due to contamination 

 with bacteria from cases of enteritis of cattle. 



1' Ref. in the Zeitsch. f iir Hygiene, III. 

 "Hygien. Rundschau, IV, No. 21. 

 " Zentralblat fur Bact., XX, 1896. 



