The sources and modes of infection / by Charles V. Chapin.

  • Charles V. Chapin
Date:
1912
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The sources and modes of infection / by Charles V. Chapin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    or dying, there was a very considerable increase. Klein 1 found that in oysters kept in sea water typhoid bacilli would live from 6 to 7 days, but if kept out of the water, for 11 days. In other shellfish their life was longer. Typhoid and Milk. — Sterile milk serves as an excellent culture medium for the typhoid bacillus, but ordinary market milk is not favorable for its growth, owing to the rapid pro- duction of lactic acid. Bassenge 2 says that when milk has soured to the extent of 0.3°-0.4° Soxhlet, and has continued in this condition for 24 hours, the bacilli are destroyed. Neu- feld 3 states that they usually disappear from ordinary milk in from 2 to 3 days. Pfuhl4 found the bacillus persisting in the milk for 13 days. Rosenau and McCoy have studied this question and reviewed the literature.5 They find that raw milk, when first drawn, has a feeble antiseptic action, and typhoid and dysentery bacilli, when added to it, decrease slightly at times, but within 48 hours their numbers increase enormously. Eyre6 also states that the typhoid bacillus may increase in milk to enormous numbers, but as the milk he experimented with was drawn under careful aseptic precautions, it is quite likely that his findings would not obtain in ordinary milk, owing to the hostile influence of lactic-acid and other bacteria. If typhoid bacilli increase in number in ordinary market milk, extensive outbreaks ought to be expected in our large American cities, where the milk is handled by large dealers drawing their supply from many producers situated at long distances, so that the milk is from 48 to 72 hours old before 1 Klein, Tr. Path. Soc. Lond, 1905, LVI, 23; Med. Press & Circ , 1905, LXXIX, 264. 2 Bassenge, Deutsche med. Wchnschr., 1903, XXIX, 675, 697. * Neufeld, Kolle u. Wassermann, Handbuch [etc.] Jena, 1903, II, 213. 4 Pfuhl, Ztschr. f. Hyg. u. Infectionskrankh., Leipz., 1902, XL, 555. 5 U. S. Pub. Health and Mar. Hosp. Serv. Hyg. Lab. Bull. No 41 449. ' ' ' 9 Eyre, J. State M. Lond., 1904, XII, 728.'