22 San. Rec., 158, 1877.
23 Ibid., June 14, 1878.
24 Ibid., April 18, May 2, 1879.
In regard to polluted water, I do not think that pathologists who attribute infectious diseases to bacteria only are justified in condemning it. It may not be so guilty, after all, for the admixtures, inorganic and organic, minerals, admixtures of wood and plants, also lower fungi and their products—algæ, infusoria—would render water rather disagreeable, but not exactly unhealthy. The latter effect can be accomplished—always assuming the bacteria theory correct, for the sake of argument—by bacteria only. But when they arrive in the stomach, their doom is sealed; they are decomposed. The only places where, possibly, they could take root would be diseased or ulcerated places in either the oral cavity or the upper portion of the oesophagus.
Not only water, but the milk of animals also, has been accused of being the direct cause of diphtheria. Powers concludes, though a connection between diphtheria and the consumption of milk have not been proven as yet, that it is very probable indeed. His careful investigations into the causes of some local epidemics in North London exclude any other source from which the people could have been affected. Perhaps one of the forms of garget, cow mammitis, is of an infectious character. His reasoning, however, is not accepted by A. Dowrus,25 who still believes that the milk which gave rise to diphtheria at a distance may have been soiled and infected. For though the connection between milk and scarlatina and typhoid fever had been known for years and variously studied, no observation of the kind had yet been made in regard to diphtheria. Besides, where the young, in England, drink much milk—viz. in the cities—diphtheria was very much less frequent than where little or no milk was taken—viz. in the country. Even in the country the well-to-do classes, who drink milk, had but little diphtheria, while the children of the poor, who obtained none, suffered a great deal from it.
25 "Diphtheria and Milk-Supply," Brit. Med. Journ., Feb. 1, 1879.
In regard to this transmission of diphtheria by means of milk O. Bollinger26 hesitates to express any opinion, except that the matter is very doubtful indeed. Probably the possibility of contracting diphtheria directly from animals is very much greater than the danger from water or milk. On a Pomeranian farm, during the winter 1875-76, every newly-born calf died of diphtheria. The superintendent of the farm and the woman who attended to the calves were taken with diphtheritic angina.27 Similar occurrences have been recorded. Bollinger reports a mycotic disease of the trachea and lungs in birds.
26 D. Z. f. Thiermed. u. vergleich. Pathol., vi., 1879, p. 7.
27 Damman, in D. Zeitsch. f. Thiermed., 1876, p. 1.
Friedberger's report,28 presented to the Veterinary Society of Munich, on croup and diphtheria of domestic fowls, leaves no doubt as to its frequency, particularly amongst the nobler varieties.