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37
"a state as to contaminate the milk. There is no attempt to keep the hips
"and flanks clean."
(ii.) "Drainage bad. The teats of the cows are clean, but the udders in
"most cases are not, especially in those animals that are long-haired. The
"flanks are dirty in many cases."
Hertford (25).—Fifty cows; all healthy. Premises in good condition.
"Flanks of the cows coated with manure. Bacillus enteritidis sporogenes
"found in water.''
Lincolnshire (38).—" Hind quarters dirty. Cubic space in sheds very
"small, as low as 308 feet per head. Floors of wood. Yard not clean."
While at Buckingham (27) two cows were found to have "had
"mammitis and Lincolnshire (38) one cow was found with catarrhal
mastitis, and removed and sold; in three cases—Middlesex (6), Cambridge
(24) and Derbyshire (32)—the supply has been terminated.
In all the farms the sanitary defects were reported to have been remedied.
BACILLUS ENTERITIDIS GAERTNER.
The Bacillus enteritidis Gaertner found in 10 samples, or 255 per cent., is
a virulent microbe, which so far as is known has not previously been absolutely
identified in milk.
It is worthy of note, however, that Delepine, in 1894, in examining the
milk which caused an extensive outbreak of diarrhoea at Manchester, found
that it contained a "large number of bacteria, the most abundant being short,
"very motile bacilli, resembling the Bacillus coli, large discrete Cocci, and a
"Streptococcus with large segments (non-virulent). Anaerobic, and Aerobic
"cultures in milk and bouillon yielded a very abundant growth of several
"organisms. I was specially struck with the abundance of bacilli which
"belonged to the Bacillus coli group. Of these there were three varieties,
"one (a) having all the cultural characters of the typical Bacillus coli com"munis;
another (6) which gave all the usual chemical cultural reactions of
"the Bacillus coli communis, but which produced on gelatine thick colonies
"with rough mammillated surface; a third one (c) had most of the characters
"of the Bacillus enteritidis of Gaertner."
He further states that on testing this last mentioned organism for virulence
"a single loopful of pure culture on agar produced the death of guinea-pigs
"within 24 to 30 hours." Professor Delepine came to the conclusion that the
milk had been contaminated • by " water heavily polluted with excreta of a
"specially virulent kind, and that the virulent bacteria so introduced had
"multiplied rapidly in the milk."
Journal of
Hygiene,
Vol. (iii)p. 76,
et seq.