CENTRAL VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 291 
pronounced to be as good as any in London. In dealing with 
the question of public sewers and private drains, it soon became 
obvious that in the infected area there were present in all their 
force, the precise conditions known to favour the dissemination 
of disease. Indeed, sanitary science could hardly point to 
a more flagrant example of the subversion of its principles 
than which the specially diseased areas presented. On this point, 
Mr. Power remarks that under conditions of existing public 
sewage and private drainage, the area cannot have failed 
to have been repeatedly if not continually exposed to sewer and 
drain nuisances, for the liability of the main sewers to stangula- 
tion at their outfall under exceptional rainfall (such as prevailed 
prior to the outbreak) must have frequently conduced to exten¬ 
sive backing up of sewage, and penning up of foul air within the 
ill-ventilated sewers, and hence to forcible expulsion of the pent 
up sewer air by the way of unventilated house drains, and ineffi¬ 
ciently trapped orifices, into the dwellings of the district. To 
put it plainly, the outbreak was one of a well-defined and local¬ 
ized character, and corresponded in extent to the area of defective 
drainage. Indeed, primci facie , there was a pronounced relation¬ 
ship between the unsanitary conditions and the event both in 
reference to time and space. The connection of the outbreak, to 
the supply of milk, was next considered. It appears that in con¬ 
sequence of representations made to Mr. Power by Dr. Morton, 
special attention was directed to two sources, from which milk 
was largely supplied to the infected district. One being a dairy 
farm at “ Muswell Hill,” and the other some sheds in the parish 
of Kilburn. Both establishments are in the hands of one pro¬ 
prietor, but only in regard to cows, and cow food was there any 
community of circumstances. “ As regards employes, general 
administration, and milk science, they where wholly distinct, the 
one from the other.” An account of the households supplied 
from the sources referred to was furnished to Mr. Power, and 
a strict inquiry was set on foot for cases of throat illness, over 
the lines through which the milk was distributed, and a very large 
percentage of cases w'as found to have occurred in houses sup¬ 
plied by it; but it is not stated whether Mr. Power pursued the 
same minute system of inquiry in regard to the distribution of 
milk from other dairies, nor does it appear whether bread and 
other articles of food, which must have been largely exposed to 
sewer air were considered in their relations to the infected house¬ 
holds. That to the milk, and not to the sanitary defects of the 
locality the oubreak was due, Mr. Power’s figures appear to prove 
most conclusively; but before they can be regarded as reliable it 
must be shown that Mr. Power’s inquiry dealt with the milk of all 
retailers alike, that he did not make house-to-house visitation in 
regard to the Muswell Hill and Kilburn milk, and that he accepted 
the medical officers report alone, on account of houses supplied 
from other sources. Cases “ so mild that their nature was rather 
inferred from their relation to other cases than from their own 
