A manual of practical hygiene for students, physicians, and health officers / By Charles Harrington.

  • Harrington, Charles, 1856-1908.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of practical hygiene for students, physicians, and health officers / By Charles Harrington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    conclusion reached was that tyrotoxicon was the cause. The milk had been kept in a buttery which M'as in a most unsanitary condition. During three years, the family had suffered frequent attacks of like character, but they were much less severe. Fresh milk, placed in the buttery over night, and then examined for tyrotoxicon, gave unmis- takable chemical and physiological evidence of that poison. Fresh milk inoculated with dirt from the buttery floor also developed it, as did also other portions treated with vomitus, stomach contents, and aqueous extract of the intestines, while a fifth specimen untreated remained free from it. All the evidence in this case pointed to the more or less constant presence of poison in the milk, and the wide variation in the time of seizure in the final outbreak indicates that all were not affected by the same day's supjjly. Milk from Diseased Cows.—The milk of cows suffering from the prominent cattle plagues is more or less altered in composition, and there appears to be evidence that sometimes it may be actually dangerous. Rinderpest.—In rinderjjest the proteids are much increased—in fact, more than doubled ; the mineral constituents are considerably increased, and the fat and sugar are diminished. Foot and Mouth Disease.—In foot and mouth disease the total solids are increased considerably, or diminished at different stages, and the milk will sometimes coagulate on boiling by reason of the excessive amount of coagulable proteids. There is reason to believe that this disease may be communicated to other animals through the milk, and there is evidence that the use of the milk by man will produce local lesions in the mouth and throat. Thus, Notter and Firth' mention an epidemic of sore throat at Dover in 1884, in which there were 205 cases of vesicular eruption in the throat or on the lips, enlarged tonsils, and in most cases enlarged glands of the neck, all occurring within a week in persons supplied by a single dairy where the disease existed. During the epizootic which occurred in New England in 1902, there were reported a number of cases of sore mouth and throat with aphthte and more or less general disturbance. It is said that in mild cases of this disease the milk is unchanged, but that in severe cases it may be very abnormal in appearance and composition and may cause very severe and even fatal sickness in man. Antlirax.—In anthrax the milk has an abnormal appearance and decompf)ses rapidly. The specific organism has been isolated in active condition by Jioschetti* from milk as late as 14 days after it had been drawn. Actinomycosis.—In actinomycf)sis, particularly if the udder is in- volved, the milk should i)c avoided, although there appears to be little direct evident iiearing upon transmission of the disease to man by tlii.H mcaiii.s. It is (;ert;iin, however, that the disease does occur some- timf« in man, and though in the matter of transmission of disease from animals V> man nothing should \h: taken for granted, it is commendable ' The Theory and I'rafitioe of ITyKii^ni:, l/oiidon, 1890, p. .SOS. ' (jiomalc di Modicina Vclcriiiii'ria, 181)1.