HOW MALTA FEVER WAS FOILED

Hokitika Guardian, 19 June 1920, Page 4

HOW MALTA FEVER WAS FOILED

(By Stephen ,Paget, F.It.C.S., Hon. Sec. Research' Defence Society.) Sir David Bruce, among his many services to mankind, stamped out Malta fever and showed how it could bo stamped out elsewhere on the Mediterranean coast. The germs of the disease—the “ micrococci ” —were discovered in 1887; This discovery was proved by a four-fold test, which went by the name ofjKooh’s postulates:. (1) The germs wero found in tlie blood and the tissues of cases o! tho disease. (2) They were grown in pure culture in test-tubes, outside the living body. (3) A dose of this pure culturn, put under the skin el animals (monkeys), produced in them the signs of disease. (4)TJie germs wero found in swarms in the blood and the tissues of the animals. Mahy years later, in 1904, pur Government sent out a Royal Society Commision to investigate the whole subject. Pain wasting, enieoblement, wreckage of health, characterised this tedious fever; the average number of soldiers and sailors in Malta suffering from it was GOO a year) the average stay in hospital was 120 days. The problem was to discover how the infection was conveyed. There was a vague idea that it was conveyed through the air and came from tho dirty condition of the Grand Harbour. But this idea was soon proved false through and through. For consider these two facts:

I;—The fever was not confined to Malta, but occurred in many Other parts of tlie world.

2.—-In Malta, some of the inland towns and villages suffered milch, more heavily than the population round the harbour. The neighbouring island of ,Gozo, likewise, was heavily infected. Besides, seven or eight cases of Malta fever had occurred in England, frOm laboratory infection, in men working with pure cultures of the germs of the disease, 2,000 miles from Malta. One of these cases ended in death. Nor was the fever among our garrison due to any fault in the barracks. /For the officers and their wives and children, though they were thoroughly well housed, suffered much more heavily cuqn tho men of the rank and file.

Nor ?vas it conveyed, like scarlet fever and small-pox, by contact. Nor was it conveyed, like malaria, yellow fever, relapsing fever, and trench fever, by insects.

With continuous hard work, by delicate and precise tests, the Commission found neither tlie air, nor the dust, nor the drainage, was the source of infection.

Then came the question: Might not the fever be convoyed by food or drink"? Some , experiments, made before 1904, had given a negative answer. But the Commission repeated them, and tho answer was positive as positive can bo. Of 21 monkeys fed on a mixture with, germs in it no fewer than 19 shoved signs of infection. “Even a single drink,” says Bruce, “ of a fluid containing but a few of the particular micrococci almost certainly gives rise to the disease.” So it seemed probably that the fever was being conveyed in some infected article of food or drink. The foodstuffs were examined. Of these one of tlie most important was the goat’s milk, which; was practically the whole milk supply of the island. The goals appeared prefeetly healthy, but several, in a small herd, wore examined, and the micrococci were found in their blood and in the milk of the milch goats. “ Some thousands of goats in Malta were then examined, and the astounding discovery was made that quite half of them were infected by Malta fever and that actually 10 per cent of them were secreting and excreting the poison in their milk. Monkeys fed on milk from an affected goat, even for one day, almost invariably took the disease.”

About this time the s.s. Joshua Nicholson shipped 65 goats from Malta for America and their milk was drunk on the voyage. The ship touched at Antwerp. There were 27 persons on board between Malta and Antwerp and 17 of them wore traced. Of these 17 persons 2 always boiled the milk, and thus were protected. Of the remaining Jo no fewer than 5 got the fever. Tlie passengers between Antwerp and New York were not traced. The goats were landed in America and put in quarantine. A woman at the quarantine station drank their milk, got the fever, and died of it. In Malta early in 1906 our men were being warned against goats’ milk, and on July Ist, 1906, it was absolutely prohibited to tho garrison.

In 1905 there Had been 643 eases among our men. Tn 1906 up to .Tiilv there wore 123 cases; during the rest of the year there were 40. In 1907 there were 11. In 1908 there were 5. In 1909 there was 1. In 1910 up to June, when the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies gave thlese facts to the House of Commons, there was none. (The “ Times,” June 14th, 1910.) The native population for a long time went on drinking the milk and having the fever.