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at a season of the year when throat trouble is generally markedly
in evidence. Under these favourable conditions a mild infection,
probably conveyed in milk, was sufficient to aggravate the throat
illness beyond its usual type and to give it the property of
marked infectiousness. I therefore recommended the residents
in the District, by means of printed posters, to boil all milk
duringthe ensuing fortnight, and in the meantime steps were taken
to ensure that the affected cows were adequately dealt with. I
could not possibly have had a better vindication of the correctness
of my conclusions than from the circumstance that whereas fresh
cases had been cropping up at the rate of 10 a day—24 hours after
the appearance of the hand-bills no further cases occurred, and
the epidemic ended as suddenly as it commenced.
I was called to account in some directions for not acquainting
residents of the particular milk supply concerned in the
outbreak; I purposely maintained a reticence upon this point for
the reason that I could not see what good could result, and it
was so easy to see the many directions in which harm might be
worked, for it is a general practice among milk vendors, if they
run short of milk, to buy of other vendors en route, so that if one
supply should be infected and named there is no guarantee that
others which would be assumed to be safe, are so. All dairy
supplies are liable—some it is true more than others—to such a
visitation of disease; the supply in question is, in my opinion, an
exceptionally good one, and unless there is some very tangible
advantage to be gained, one hesitates to take a step that might
mean ruin to persons who take the same precaution as others,
but who are less fortunate. It was, therefore, judged safer and
better in the interests of all to simply advise that all milk should
be boiled.
After prolonged periods of heavy rainfall, especially in the
autumn, it is a wise precaution to make it a practice to boil
milk, for it is my experience that cows, in even the best
regulated dairies, cannot be kept, or even milked, under conditions
ot sufficient cleanliness to preclude all likelihood of some possible
infection. It is usual to find the cowsheds approached by a yard
into which all the manure is emptied and allowed to remain for
far too long periods—especially is this manure allowed to