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49
"2. The disease cropped up, with scarcely an exception,
in good class property, where, of course, most cows'
milk is consumed.
"3. On inspecting all the cows which furnished milk in
the area, I discovered three which were evidently
out of health, and in each case the teats were slightly
ulcerated, and one of the cows had a small chronic
abscess in the udder. I also carefully examined the
throats of those who milked the cows, but found
them, without exception, healthy.
"4. I then ascertained that the supply to which these
cows contributed was distributed to 17 per cent, of
the total houses in the district, but of the number
of houses infected it supplied 94 per cent.
"5. The unfavourable climatic conditions had prevailed
for at least a fortnight prior to the appearance of these
throat cases, which undoubtedly cropped up in far
less than a week after exposure to the exciting cause;
indeed, there were strong reasons for believing that
the so-called "incubation period" did not exceed
48 hours. Under these circumstances, and after the
other possible causes had been excluded, the sudden
outcrop of many cases in a localised area pointed to a
milk epidemic.
"It may be of further interest to briefly state the main
reasons that made me hestitate before I pronounced the milk
to be the cause of the infection:—
"1. The outset of the outbreak was not characteristic
of milk infection. Instead of there being 5 infected