DIPHTHERIA PRODUCED, BY MILK.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 9131, 4 June 1880, Page 2

DIPHTHERIA PRODUCED BY MILK.

*r-r-, rrr— — .-. : . (Wellington Chronicle.) One of the most mysterious and dreadful scourges that afflict the colonies is the fell disease known as diphtheria. No place, no matter how excellently situated according to all the known laws of health, is secure from its terrible ravages. In Wellington a short time ago it entered the home of a Wellington citizen and carried off a fine lad of 16. Three more inmates of the same house are now " down " with the same disease. The house alluded to is situated on a breezy hill-top, just overlooking the harbour. No other house is : near HIIt has all the latest appliances for drainage that modern science has devised. Its owner is in very comfortable circumstances. In brief, it is one of the, last places in the world that should be visited by epidemic or endemic disease. How did diphtheria find its way thither ? . This is indeed a puzzle. .We might cite' numerous instances in regard to diphtheria, which are fully as mysterious. We remember an instance where a well-to-do farmer in Victoria, who carried ; on his operations on the most scientific san : tary principles, lost his wife and eight children all in one week from diphtheria. Yet, his house was not near any other, and it was the first in which the scourge appeared. Just now there is an epidemic of diphtheria raging in Victoria, and its ravages are most .severe in remote country vil-, i lages, where diseases of the kind; should ; bo literally unknoivn. How is this? ; We think the solution of this vitally • interesting problem may be found, in ! milk ? Last year there was an alarming > epidemic of diphtheria in London.,, ii i thorough investigation was made as to ' the cause of the outbreak. The report I has been just published. The gist of it. is, that the disease was produced ,by milk. No less than 264 cases, 38' of. which proved fatal, were absolutely proved to have been caused by milk i supplied by one dairyman. The evidence was conclusive that the disease . existed in the milk as it came from tlie cow, any could not have been communicated by the man who milked the cows, . or during the process of serving the customers. Those who have inspected dairy farms will not, perhaps, be so ; astonished as the ordinary observer at such an extraordinary result. There [ are in Wellington milking-yards with , their surroundings that might fairly be credited with any disease of the diphtheria type. Some yards that we wot of are only fit for pigs to wallaw in.