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depends, wholly or partly, upon surrounding temperature,
deficiency of rainfall, and pollution of food, chiefly milk.
The exact relationship which these conditions bear to each
other is not yet known.
Some authorities hold that a certain temperature affects food,
conducing towards creating in it injurious properties. Others
believe that it is a question of pollution of milk by dust, which
carries to the milk the casual micro-organisms, and that
deficient rainfall favours this contamination, and increased temperature
favours the growth multiplication of the bacteria thus
conveyed to the milk. As Dr. Newsholme says, " Whatever be
its mode of operation, a frequent fall of rain during the summer
weeks, even though its total amount be not great, is one of the
effectual means of keeping down the diarrhœal death rate"; and
whilst he considers temperature conditions of great importance,
"rainfall is more important than temperature in relation to
epidemic diarrhoea." Rain washes the air, if the expression may
be allowed, and carries to the surface aerial dust. It, of course,
also washes the surface of the soil and removes surface pollution,
and with it micro-organisms capable of infecting infants, usually
by food. Thus the relationship between these meteorological
conditions and milk, though an open question, may be an essential
one to the origin of the disease. In any event, it seems clear
that milk is probably the common vehicle of infection (Ballard,
Delepine, Newsholme.)
On July 1st, 1902, we commenced a four-foot earth thermometer
(Symon's) in the gardens of Wilmington Square (near
the Town Hall), and since that date a daily reading has been
taken at 9 a.m. The thermometer registered 56° F. (the critical
temperature) on July 5th, 1903, and it remained above that
figure until October 19th. On July 11th it rose to 57° F.; on
July 16th to 58° F.; and from August 16th until October 13th
it remained at or over 57° F. During that period, 58 deaths,
from Epidemic Diarrlnea, of children occurred. Unhappily, the
past records for a number of years for the constituent parts of