292 CENTRAL VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
symptoms ” are not such as would reach the medical officers, but 
they have been taken account of by Mr. Power, and would no 
doubt swell the numbers, as against the Kilburn and Muswell 
Hill milk, to formidable proportions. As to the means whereby 
the milk became infected, no definite conclusion seems to have 
been arrived at. The water in use at Muswell Hill, while possibly 
exposed to foul soakage, was in general use by the family at the 
farm, who continued in good health throughout the epidemic, 
although they used besides the rejected milk. The Kilburn water 
was derived from the West Middlesex Company, and for reasons 
before stated, is acquitted of having any concern whatever with 
the outbreak. The sanitary condition of the premises, the 
general conduct of the business, and the manipulation of the 
milk and dairy utensils, reveal nothing suggestive of means 
whereby specific infection could have been brought about. At 
no time has diphtheria been known to exist in any member of 
the two households concerned, although both young and old 
have drunk largely of both milk and water, and moreover, I am 
informed on the best authority, that in no instance has diph¬ 
theria existed in the households of the several retailers who 
dealt out the milk, although, in some instances, they comprise 
large families of youug children who partook of it daily in con¬ 
siderable quantities. In regard to the cows, I have had several 
interviews with the veterinary surgeon under whose medical 
care they are placed, and he assures me that at no time 
during the first six months of the year was any one of them 
the subject of garget, or any febrile or other disease whatever 
likely to contaminate milk. Indeed, throughout the whole period 
during which diphtheria prevailed, the two herds were in the 
most healthy condition. Whatever explanation, therefore, be 
sanctioned as to the way in which the epidemic originated, these 
facts cannot be disregarded so long as milk is held to be in 
question. “ As to health of cow t s,” says Mr. Power, “ it is affirmed 
that at neither place has serious illness occurred; but this affirm¬ 
ation does not exclude occurrence of cold or other minor ailment 
among cows.” Prom this it would seem that the entire respon¬ 
sibility is centred in that common condition we term “ cold,” or 
in some other undefined minor affection, which may or may not 
have had existence. It is hardly necessary for me to urge the utter 
absence of data, by which any possible relationship can be shown 
to exist between diphtheria and cold; nor need I dwell on the 
overwhelming evidence which we daily experience to the con¬ 
trary, and with which all are familiar. I now pass on to notice 
some observations of Messrs. Power and Smee, contained in 
papers read before the Pathological Society of London. In 
reviewing the history of milk epidemics, Mr. Power says, “In 
many instances in which a relation has been traced between milk 
distribution and enteric fever, there is no doubt of the disease 
being due to the dissemination of milk contaminated by impure 
water or air. There are other examples, when such introduction 
