BACTERIA IN FOODS 201 



Health for Calcutta, has placed on record an interesting 

 series of cholera cases on board the Ardenclutha, in the port 

 of Calcutta, which arose from drinking milk which had been 

 polluted with one quarter of its volume of cholera-infected 

 water. This water came from a tank into which some 

 cholera dejecta had passed. Of the ten men who drank the 

 milk four died, five were severely ill, and one, who drank but 

 very little of the milk, was only slightly ill. There was no 

 illness whatever amongst those who did not drink the milk. 



Diphtheria, Recent observations on the infectivity of 

 diphtheria in milk by Schottelius have established the fact 

 that milk is a good medium for the bacillus of diphtheria, 

 but that it rarely acts as a vehicle for transmitting the dis- 

 ease. Klein has emphasised the possibility of this means 

 of infection. In the first place, it is obvious that the milk 

 may become infected from a human source — from pollution 

 with diphtheritic discharges or dried '* fomites. " Secondly, 

 from a variety of different quarters evidence has been forth- 

 coming to throw some suspicion upon the cow itself as the 

 agent. Klein states that '* a new eruptive disease on the 

 teats and udder of the cow," consisting of papules, vesicles, 

 and induration, may be set up by the subcutaneous inocu- 

 lation of a pure culture of the Bacillus diphtherim. In these 

 eruptions a bacillus similar to the B. diphtheri(2 was demon- 

 strated. On a priori grounds this evidence substantiates a 

 belief that diphtheria, in some form or other, may be a dis- 

 ease of cows. Other observers have not been able to confirm 

 these observations, and the whole matter of cow diphtheria 

 must remain for the present sub judice. 



As long ago as 1879 W. H. Power traced an epidemic of 

 diphtheria in ^^orth London to the milk supply. In 1887 

 the same authority studied another outbreak, and other 

 observers have produced further evidence in favour of the 

 conveyance of this disease by milk. Air infection of milk 

 by the Bacillus diphtheri<2 probably occurs only very rarely, 



