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26
It is needless to say that the question raised by Dr. Cameron's
paper and Mr. Power's report is one of the greatest interest. The
connexion between localised outbreaks of scarlet fever and the
drinking of milk, has been well established in repeated instances;
but hitherto the dissemination of the disease through milk has
been supposed due solely to the contamination of the milk by the
introduction of scarlatinal poison of human origin—either by the
milker's hands or by absorption when the milk has been kept in
an infected atmosphere. In the present instance, the persons
best able to judge entertain no doubt that the milk which
disseminated scarlet fever amongst its drinkers was not thus
specifically contaminated. A question, however, has been raised,
by a writer in the British Medical Journal, whether the cow
disease was originally bovine or whether the first cow was infected
by human scarlatina?—in other words, whether the disease may be
looked on as scarlatina modified by its passage through the cow ?
The latter view, it is observed, is not supported by the analogy cf
small-pox, which retains its character of vaccinia when reintroduced
into the human organism. The other view seems to be also open
to grave doubt; firstly, from being unsupported by analogy ; and
secondly, from the improbability of a disease, so nearly universal
in the human race as scarlatina, being produced by one which
cannot be very prevalent among cows. It is pointed out that
other animal diseases, e.g., foot and mouth disease, anthrax and
glanders, are communicated to man unmodified, and that there are
no such differences between rabies in the dog and hydrophobia in
man as between a vesicular or pemphigoid eruptive fever like this
in the cow and the erythematous eruption of scarlatina in man.
The necessity of careful study of the nature of the disease in the
cow is indicated, and it is satisfactory to know that this study is
being made at the Brown Institution by one so competent as
Dr. Klein. Meanwhile the observation in the Lancet, that "in
face of such evidence " (contained in Mr. Power's report) "we are
compelled to accept the conclusion that the disease of the cow
was related to that of man, as cause is to effect," seems to be
justified.