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absorption when the milk had been stored in an infected place
—a condition of things entirely different to that prevailing at
Hendon, where there was no suspicion of scarlatina among the
employes at the Dairy, and where the sanitary arrangements appear
to have been quite satisfactory. It may be asked, then, how are
we to guard against the spread of scarlet fever if it be true, as
there is good ground for suspecting, that the disease of the cow
in the Hendon outbreak was related to that of man as cause is to
effect? Well, consumers may make themselves secure by following
the oft-repeated advice to boil their milk. For the rest, we
must trust to the good sense of milk producers, who in these days,
when sanitary knowledge is permeating all classes, may be expected
to take an increasing interest in the preservation of the health of
their stock; and, above all, to the strict performance of their duty
by Local Authorities and their officers, who are responsible for
the due carrying out of the provisions of the Dairies, Cowsheds,
and Milkshops Order, which enable them to "make regulations
for prescribing precautions to be taken by
purveyors of milk against infection or contamination,"
and which enacts that "if at any time disease exists among the
cattle in a dairy or cowshed the milk of a diseased cow
therein—(a) shall not be mixed with other milk, and (6) shall not
be sold or used as human food."
After the report was in type, I received from the Agricultural
Department of the Privy Council Office, a Report by Mr J.
Wortley Axe (Professor of Pathology at the Royal Veterinary
College, and Consulting Veterinary Surgeon to the British Dairy
Farmers' Association) dealing with the eruptive cow-disease
referred to, in which reasons are advanced for doubting whether
the disease has the relation to human scarlatina which Mr.
Power's inquiry and Dr. Klein's study of the pathology had led
them to entertain. Professor Axe's report, which bears the
imprimatur of Professor Brown, Professional Officer of the Department,
treats of the malady as being at once common, well