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23
SCARLET FEVER ALLEGED TO BE DISSEMINATED
BY THE MILK OF DISEASED COWS.
In my Annual Report for 1885, I stated that scarlet fever
had recently acquired a new interest for sanitarians, as the result
of an outbreak in certain districts in London and at Hendon,
inquiry into which had led Mr. W. H. Power, Second Assistant
Medical Officer to the Local Government Board, to believe that
the disease might be of bovine origin. Dr. Klein subsequently
confirmed the views expressed by Mr. Power, which, moreover,
commended themselves to Dr. George Buchanan, Medical Officer
to the Local Government Board.
It need hardly be said that the subject would be one of
equal interest and importance should the views of Mr. Power
and Dr. Klein be ultimately sustained. But their views have
been contested by more than one subsequent investigator. The
first note of opposition was sounded by Professor J. Wortley
Axe, of the Royal Veterinary College, in a report dealing, as he
believed, with the eruptive malady now commonly referred to as
the "Hendon Cow Disease." This disease, he states, is at once
common, well known to farmers, innocuous, and has no relation
to human scarlatina. He further states that milk from
other dairies infected by cows from the same herd as those
which infected the Hendon cows, was supplied to the public at
the same time without evil effect, though of course, I may add,
in contravention of the provisions of the "Dairies Order."
He believes that the Hendon milk received its infective power
from "some obscure source connected with the dairy by
channels which inquiry has failed to reveal." Professor Axe
did not see the Hendon cows during the critical period, but he
speaks of the disease as an eruptive one, usually confined to the
teats, "and as being known among dairy farmers as cow-pox."
He admits that it is transmissible to man by inoculation in the
form of vesicles (vaccinia), but avers that it is "incapable of
communicating scarlatina or other epidemic fever."