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225 [1899
These figures are very similar to those obtained in Hackney,
where out of 77 absolute tests 17, or 22.1 per cent., were found to
be infected.
In St. Pancras no inoculation experiments were made, "but
if they had been," says Dr. Sykes, Medical Officer of Health, "no
doubt a larger number of the samples would have shown the
presence of the organisms of consumption," but, nevertheless,
tubercle bacilli were discovered in 5 out of 50, or in 10 per cent. of the
milks. Of these 50 milks only 16 were normal, 3 being dirty, 8
containing an excessive number of microbes, 6 an excessive number
of leucocytes, and 12 pus in smaller or greater amounts.
In Liverpool in 1898, 112 samples were examined for tubercle,
of which 12, or 10.2 per cent., contained the germ of consumption;
and in 1899 in the same city 352 milks were examined, with the
result that in 50 instances the inoculated guinea pigs died before
the observation was completed, while in the remaining 302, 16, or
5.29 per cent., were found to have developed tuberculosis.
A peculiarity, which most people would not expect, was
remarked in the farmers' milks, both in Islington and in Liverpool,
that they were more largely infected with tubercle than were the
milks obtained from cows that were kept in the cow-houses in those
boroughs. In Islington out of 105 farmers' milks examined, 14, or
13.3 per cent., contained the tubercle bacilli, while in Liverpool,
out of 186 examined in 1898 and 1899, 20, or 107 per cent.,
contained them, whereas out of 12 town milks 1, or 8.3 per cent.,
was infected in Islington, and in Liverpool, out of 228, only 8, or
3.1 per cent., were infected.
These figures teach this lesson, that urban communities should
be in no hurry to effect the removal of cow-sheds to the country
until such time as rural authorities, either of their own accord or
under compulsion from the Local Government Board, enforce the
milkshop, dairies and cow-shed regulations, which in many places
at the present time are a dead letter.
A few years ago it became my duty in investigating the causes
that led to a serious outbreak of scarlet fever in the northern part