144 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



that even the milk of perfectly healthy cows may 

 spread the disease when it is contaminated and 

 infected by human bacilli. Persons attending the 

 cows, milking them, or handling the milk at any 

 stage, may infect it, and so spread the deadly germs. 

 This is important in view of the fact that very many 

 tuberculous persons take up farming and dairy work 

 in the hope that they will be benefited by the open- 

 air work and the simple, wholesome life which we 

 associate with farming. The consumer should be 

 protected against the danger of infection by human 

 tubercle bacilli conveyed in the milk, as well as against 

 infection by bovine bacilli. 



Nor is tuberculosis the only disease that is dissemi- 

 nated by means of infected milk. There have been 

 many epidemics of diphtheria, for example, traced to 

 an infected milk supply.** Whether, as contended 

 by some English authorities, diphtheria is directly 

 transmissible from cattle to human beings, or whether 

 in all cases where the epidemics have been traced to 

 the milk supply the latter was first infected with 

 material from some human sufferer, subsequent to 

 the milking, is a disputed point upon which we need 

 not dwell. All authorities are agreed as to the fact 

 of the spread of the disease through the medium of 

 infected milk. The first positive discovery of this 

 fact seems to have occurred in 1878, when there was 

 a severe outbreak of the disease at St. John's Wood, 



