DIPHTHERIA PRODUCED BY MILK.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 408, 2 July 1880, Page 3

DIPHTHERIA PRODUCED BY MILK.

(Wellington Chronicle.)

One of the most mysterious and dreadful scourges that afflicted the colonies is the fell disease known as diphtheria. No place, no matter how excellently situated accordingi.-to all the .kxo vn. laws of health, is secure from its terrible ravages. In .Wellington a short time ago it entered the home of a We'lington citizen and carried off a.fine lad of 16. Three more inmates of the same house are now v down " with the same disease. The house alluded to is situated on a breezy, hill-top, just overlooking .'the harbor. No other house is near it. It has all the latest appliances for drainage that modern science his demised, Its owner is ill very comfortable circumstances. In brief, it is one of the last places in tbe 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. j We remembar an instance where a well-to-do farmer in Victoria, who. carried on his operations on the most scientific sanitary principles, lost his wife and eight children all. in. one week from diphtheria. Yet his house wus not near any other, and it w.<.s 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 villages, where diseases of the kind should be literally unknown. 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. A thorough investigation was made ns to the cause of the outbreak. The report has been just published. The gist of it is, that the disease was produced by milk. No less than 2G4 cases, 88 of which proved fatal, were absolutely proved to have been caused by milk supplied by one -juryman. The evidence was conclusive that the disease existed \\ the milk a* it came from tU cow, aid csould not have been communi- | cated by tie man who milked the cows or during tte process of serving the ; customers. Thooe who kave 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 wallow in.