On a localised outbreak of typhoid fever in Islington, during the months of July and August, 1870, traced to the use of impure milk / by Edward Ballard.

  • Ballard, Edward, 1820-1897.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a localised outbreak of typhoid fever in Islington, during the months of July and August, 1870, traced to the use of impure milk / by Edward Ballard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    during the same period, that came to my knowledge, I scarcely ever heard the name of any one milkman mentioned twice. In these seventy families there happened altogether 175 cases, of which thirty were fatal—that is, the fatality was 171 per cent. Again, taking the list of customers, I have gone through my mortuary records with it house by house, and I find that, besides the thirty deaths from typhoid which I knew of, there were altogether but three other deaths in these families—one was of an infant born prematurely (from what cause I could not ascertain), one was of a person who died suddenly with fatty degeneration of the heart, and the third was of an old lady, whose death is attributed on the certificate to “ choleraic diarrhoea.” Probably, enough has been stated to satisfy you, as I am satisfied, that the distribution of the typhoid was connected with the distribution of the milk from the particular dairy referred to. But, at the risk of being charged with heaping Ossa upon Pelion, I shall mention some other observations which add confirmation to the inference. They are interesting apart from this use of them. 1st. It is remarkable how the typhoid picked out, as it were, the customers of this dairy in particular streets and rows of houses. Thus, in one long road, and a street issuing from it, at a distance of a mile or more from the dairy, it supplied three families ; of these, two had typhoid. It supplied two families in a street with about thirty houses; one suffered from typhoid; in the other died the old lady already men- tioned from “ choleraic diarrhoea.” It supplied four families in a new neighbourhood with about seventy houses ; three of these families had typhoid. It supplied four families in a < crescent with twenty-five houses ; all four had typhoid (in one * only a single mild case occurred). It supplied four families in a row of nine houses ; typhoid occurred in two of them, and in ' the other two, cases of a mild febrile character (not enumerated) occurred. It supplied four families in two opposite rows of houses, altogether about sixty-seven; three of them had t}rphoid happen in them. It supplied four families in a square with