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67
In food inside of, as well as outside of, the human body, such
micro-organism finds, especially at certain seasons, nidus and
pabulum convenient for its development, multiplication, or evolution.
From food, as also from the contained organic matter of
particular soils, such micro-organism can manufacture by the
chemical changes wrought therein through certain of its life processes,
a substance which is a virulent chemical poison; and that
this substance is, in the human body, the material cause of
epidemic Diarrhoea.
Although the specific germ of Summer Diarrhoea cannot be
said to have been isolated with certanity, the behaviour of the
organism most frequently found in infantile Diarrhoea is interesting.
When sterilized milk is inoculated with this organism, the
germ grows rapidly and is easily recoverable, but when unsterilized
milk is inoculated with Morgan's bacillus and incubated at room
temperature for 6, 12 and 24 hours, it was impossible to recover
the bacillus by the usual methods.
The milk delivered to this institution was always pasteurized,
so that the condition under which the germs of Diarrhoea would
multiply were present, but whether all the cases were due to the
same cause, or resulted from a case-to-case infection is open to
argument. It may be stated that the measures which were taken
to cope with the disease were based on the assumption of a caseto-case
infection and they were successful.
It is most unlikely that the milk was infected before its arrival
in the house. It was obtained from a company which pasteurizes
all its milk at the farms, and delivered at the house in a sealed
can. Moreover, milk from the same churn was supplied to
another institution, and no cases of Diarrhoea occurred. It is true
that no small children resided in the other institution, but 9 of
the nurses were attacked in the affected house. As far as could
be ascertained the milk delivered by the dairy company about that
period appeared to be free from suspicion, and there is no ground
for assuming that the milk was infected before its arrival.