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adjacent to the banks of a stream. Water was pumped from this stream by a powerful electric pump and was used for all general purposes of the dairy —that is, flushing the yard and cowbails, filling the cooling-trough, rinsing of cans, &c. ; in fact, all purposes other than as the water-supply for the cooler. Water for the cooler was obtained from a spring some 100 yards distant from the dairy. The spring rises close to the bank of the stream but several feet above its normal water-level and discharges into it. A sample of water taken from this spring showed it to be of a high degree of bacterial purity, no coliform organisms being found in 100 c.c. quantities. The stream from which the water was drawn drains a considerable watershed largely given over to the grazing of dairy stock. It was ascertained that a number of farms lay 011 the watershed and that the last notified case of typhoid lived at one of them. An inspection of the surroundings of this farm showed that a drainage ditch ran along a fence-line past the house at a distance of 20 ft. or so. Household waste water was discharged to this ditch, without treatment, by an open drain! The only sanitary convenience was a pan privy situated immediately beside the ditch. Evidence of recent burial of the contents of the privy along the fence-line and a matter of only 1 ft. to 2 ft. from the ditch was evident. The course of the ditch was traced, when it was found to run into the stream which passed the dairy some distance above it. The total distance from the farm to the dairy was estimated at from three-quarters to one mile. Other farms were visited from which drainage could find its way to the stream now under suspicion. Pigsties were found the contents of which were being discharged directly into one or other of the tributary streams, and over one of them the farm privy had been built. The conditions found in the St. Marylebone outbreak of milk-borne enteric fever in 1873, described by the Medical officer to the Privy Council with an artistry to which I cannot aspire, were found duplicated almost exactly in New Zealand three-quarters of a century later. Direct visual evidence was now to hand that the water used in the dairy was subject to gross pollution with both human and animal excrement. Whether the epidemic was typhoid or not, whether any faecal material reaching the stream directly or indirectly was from typhoid carriers or not, the potential danger of this situation was such as absolutely to condemn this stream as a source of water-supply. The producer was accordingly requested to discontinue using , water from the stream for any purpose whatsoever connected with the dairy. The pump was forthwith disconnected, and from then on only water from the spring was used in the dairy. This caused considerable inconvenience to the producer, as storage facilities for the spring water in course of erection were not yet completed and the flow of the spring was barely sufficient for all dairy purposes unless this storage was available. Subsequently a bacteriological examination of water from the stream was carried out. It was estimated to contain 7,000 E. coli per 100 ml., an indication of gross feecal pollution. The quantity of milk produced at the vendor's dairy during the winter and early spring was insufficient to meet the town's requirements. He therefore supplemented his own supply during these months by milk purchased from the Milk Marketing Division's plant at Blenheim. This Blenheim milk was bulked, cooled, and railed to Kaikoura in cans. It was vended loose in the same manner as the locally produced milk. At the time of the preliminary investigation (17th October) the vendor stated that the milk from Blenheim was pasteurized. It did not therefore come immediately under suspicion. On checking this point it was found not to have been so treated, and the matter had to be reconsidered. Since 110 cases of typhoid had been notified in any area other than Kaikoura served with Blenheim milk, it seemed reasonable to infer that this milk could not be incriminated as the source of infection. Later history confirmed this view ; the last delivery of Blenheim milk was made on 27th September, and it is obvious that a considerable number of cases were infected subsequent to that date.

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