DIPHTHERIA 113 



A large epidemic of diphtherial^ which broke out 

 among the inhabitants of the villages along the coast 

 north of Copenhagen, in 1881, offered conditions of prop- 

 agation which strongly signified that milk was the means 

 of spreading the contagion. 



In 1893 a small epidemic was noted in Lnnd, Sweden, 

 when eight persons in different families were sick with 

 diphtheria. These cases were traced to the use of milk 

 from a farm near Lund which was infected with diph- 

 theria.'" 



Quite an extended epidemic occurred in 1886 in Frim- 

 ley, England; in the course of a few days 70 cases of 

 diphtheria occurred, distributed in more than 30 fam- 

 ilies, 15 cases being fatal. All the sick had received milk 

 from the same dairy. Not one case of diphtheria oc- 

 curred during this time among those using milk from 

 other dairies.'^ 



[The medical literature of recent years contains 

 many reports of milk-borne outbreaks of diphtheria, a 

 number of which are gathered and summarized by 

 Swithinbank and Newman.*^ The following case, cited 

 in their summary, is instructive. At Ashtabula, Ohio, 

 100 persons became affected with diphtheria in Decem- 

 ber, 1894. The houses in which the disease occurred 

 Tvere widely separated but milk was taken at all of them 

 from the same dairyman. On the farm of this dairyman, 

 a workman had a very sore throat, probably diphthe- 

 ritic. This person had assisted in the work of the dairy 

 while suffering acutely from sore throat. Of 44 house- 

 holds investigated, it was found that 32 had received 



2» Ugeskrif t for Laeger, 1881. 

 " Hospitalstidende, 1893. 

 "Ref. in Milchzeitung, 1886, p. 835. 

 ^^ Bacteriology of Milk. 

 8 



