146 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



such elementary rules of hygiene to be adopted. Why 

 should it take an epidemic of typhoid to make the 

 authorities of a city or town see that "milk cans 

 are cleaned thoroughly and that no water which 

 might contain typhoid germs is put into them"? 



Cows do not suffer from typhoid, therefore the 

 typhoid bacilli, which in milk multiply with alarming 

 rapidity, must enter it from an outside source, after 

 it is drawn from the cow. They may enter the milk 

 through the use of infected water to dilute the milk 

 or to cleanse the utensils ; from some person suffering 

 from the disease, — an attendant, for example, whose 

 infection has not been discovered, or one who has 

 returned to work too soon, — or from some one who 

 has come in contact with a typhoid patient and borne 

 some of the germs away upon his clothing or person, 

 which afterwards accidentally get into the milk. 

 These are the principal means of infection. An illus- 

 tration of the ease with which typhoid may be spread 

 through infected milk was seen in the epidemic of 

 the disease in AUentown, Penn., during February, 

 1907. It was shown that a case of typhoid occur- 

 ring in the home of a milk dealer was concealed, with 

 the result that cases later occurred in twenty-five 

 houses at which that dealer delivered milk." * 



* No attempt has been made to burden these pages with 

 cases of typhoid and other diseases which have been definitely 

 traced to the milk supply. The reader who is interested in this 



