HOME HEALTH GLIDE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 November 1942, Page 5

HOME HEALTH GLIDE

UNDULANT FEVER. (By the Health Department.) One of the most convincing arguments in favour of pasteurised milk is provided by undulant fever, a distressing disease that means a heavy economic loss to the dairy farmer. By pasteurising the milk from infected dairy herds the deadly brucellosis germ is killed and its transmission to human beings prevented. It is estimated that in the United States of America twelve million people are infected with this lingering milkborne disease. While in New Zealand it is not nearly so prevalent, the source of infection is there in our dairy herds. There is not the slightest doubt that the more general use of pasteurised milk has curbed the spread of undulant fever in our community. In fact, in the urban areas very few cases of it have been reported of late years, but in the rural areas where milk is consumed almost straight from the cow, the risk is very much greater. Anyone who lives in the country and drinks untreated milk from an infected cow is liable to come down with fever and vague pains which are particularly pronounced in the afternoons. This may keep up for years. Hardly an organ in the body is safe from the invasion of the brucellosis germ, and the symptoms are sometimes uncertain. An attack of influenza may really be a dose of undulant fever and although the disease rarely kills its victims it can maim them. In dairy cattle the germ causes sterility. The only way to avoid contracting undulant fever is by drinking pasteurised milk. In the country the milk should either be boiled or alternately heated to 155 degrees F and stirred while cooking slowly, if it comes from suspect cows. Workers with the cows should be scrupulously clean always, and meticulously careful to wash hands after dealing with infected cattle.