Report on an outbreak of enteric fever in the county borough of Bournemouth and in the boroughs of Poole and Christchurch / by W. Vernon Shaw.

  • Shaw, W. Vernon (William Vernon), 1874-1937.
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on an outbreak of enteric fever in the county borough of Bournemouth and in the boroughs of Poole and Christchurch / by W. Vernon Shaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    x8 (3) That A/s cows (which were in the habit of drinking at the stream) conveyed the infection. (1) There is no evidence of this. With regard to (2) two experiments were made. A quantity of a harmless dye (fluorescin) was put into the stream, and thereafter samples were taken from the well for a number of days without the dye being found in them. It is to be borne in mind that this test is dependent on naked eye appearances and is of value mainly where subterranean water courses are present or are suspected. The second test was more delicate. After having ascertained that there was no lithium in the well water, a quantity of lithium citrate was put into the stream and lithium was subsequently detected in the well water by means of the spectroscopic test. This is regarded .as an exacting test and it does not follow that micro-organisms would behave in the same way. Nevertheless the result indicates that there is a communication from stream to well though possibly an intermittent one; but from the bacterio¬ logical evidence it would appear that the route may be impassable to pathogenic organisms or only intermittently practicable. As to (3), Dr. Scott points out that the transmission of the infection by cows in contact with human sewage is theoretically possible in three different ways. (1a) By fouling of the udder and teats, followed by direct mechanical transfer of specifically infected material to the milk. Reference to the diagram accompanying this report shows that both A/s and C/s cows had access to the stream (at places 86 yds., and a quarter of a mile, re¬ spectively), below the point of discharge of the sewage. They therefore had ample opportunity on occasions of drinking specifically infected water and of fouling their feet and legs. I have already referred to the marked fluctuations in the level of the stream, and there is no doubt that on many occasions the cows’ teats and udders were liable to become wetted with infected water. This may have happened in July. If the conclusion set out above with regard to the carrier is correct, then whenever the effluent became specifically polluted, the cows were standing in and were drinking typhoid-contaminated water. C/s cows were exposed to a similar risk, and if A/s cows carried the contamination there is no reason why C/s should not. It is true that no member of C/s family (three persons) contracted enteric fever, but they all denied drinking raw milk at any time. When A. drove in his cows to be milked, he is said to have washed their udders with cold water and a cloth, but the same water sufficed for more than one cow and the same