River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1878-11-07
DEATH IN THE MILK PITCHER.
[London Times.

The necessity for periodical and thor
ough inspection of dairy farms and diaries
has been forcibly illustrated at Croydon.
For considerable time, unit quite recently
the town his been free from typhoid fever
but in August number of cases occurred,
chiefly in the eastern division of the district
The medical officer of health being instruct
ed to investigate the cause of this outbreak,
has lust presented to the local board a re-
port on the subject, in which he states that
early in the inquiry he found that the cases
occurred in houses supplied with milk by
one or other of two diaries. and further in
qniry showed that these two diaries were
worked together as one.
Taking all the twenty-nine cases of fever
which had occurre 4, he found that twenty
four had milk frJ this special supply while
the other five Eases had milk from i've other
sources. This special incidence in one milk
supply thJ medical officer considered was far
too great to be a matter of chance, and
pointed concusively, in his opinion, to milk
as tn distributor of the disease. AS milk
by itself has never been shown to be capable
of producing enteric fever, but in several
we'll known instances impure water distri-
buted with the milk has produced severe
epidemics of enteric fever, it is reasonable
To suppose that in this instances impure
water may have been mixed with the milk,
either by design or accident, and so have
caused the outbreak.
There is not any actual evidence of the adj
dition of water in the present instance, al
though in each of the farms on which the
cows were grazing at the time source of ex-
trernely impure water was accessible, and If
not added actually to the milk, may have
been used for rinsing the milking pals.
There is no longer any danger from this
milk; the cows are now on one farm, and the
source of impure water has been closed by
the advice of the medical officer. TO pre-
vent any spread of the epidemic the sewers
and drains have been daily flushed with disin-
fectants, and up to the present time no
fresh cases have been heard of such as would
indicate any further extension of the disease.
This limited outbreak, which has been SO
quickly traced to its origin, is however, ex-
ceeding instructive, and it is thought that il
serves to explain, in some measure, similar
outbreak which occurred at Croydon in 1875,
but which, until now, has been unaccounted
for. The board of health, it is said, has
power under existing acts of parliament to
inspect cowsheds, but not diaries.
Dr. A. Carpenter stated to the Croydon
board of health that he has known of case
in which fever of the typhoid kind was dis
tributed in consequence of the dairy in
which the milk vas kept being in communi-
cation with the sewers of the district, and 1t,
unfortunately happened that the communi
cation was not trapped. The milk was kept
in the dairy and in the basement, and the
trap being opened and certain arrangements
carried on with carbu4ic acid, many of the
customers of that milkman returned the
milk because it smelt of tar. That told him
at once the communication between the
sewer and the dairy was open, and that the
foul air was finding its way into the dairy
and becoming absorbed by the milk, than
which nothing in nature is so capable of alb
sorbing sewer gases. That dairy was the
means of distributing typhoid germs, and
vet the dairyman was innocent of mixing
forl water with his milk.