A remarkable report by Mr. Shirley Murphy, Medical Officer of
St. Pancras, on the recent outbreak of typhoid in that parish, was read on Wednesday. It showed conclusively that the dis- ease was conveyed through the milk consumed in the houses affected. These houses, 276 in number, were subject to the ordinary influences, were no worse drained than their neigh- bours, and were not specially poisoned by neighbourhood to -the Regent's Canal. Of the 431 persons attacked, however, 220 are customers of Mr. X, milk vendor, and supplied by his carriers, 130 send for milk from his shop ; and eighteen received it from Mr. Y, who is ohly a middleman for Mr. X. In one large tene- 'neat house in Islington, with sixty-two apartments, all who
bought milk elsewhere escaped ; but of the fifteen families which dealt with Mr. X, not one was without a case of fever. Further inquiry showed that not all of Mr. X's customers were affected, but only those supplied from one farm in Hert- fordshire, where the cattle drank from a pond into which the water of a neighbouring cesspool percolated. And, of course, when the history of this cesspool was traced, it was found that persons had recently used it known to have been afflicted with typhoid fever. We wonder if cholera is ever conveyed in this way. It is supposed to be always conveyed in water; but nothing is more puzzling than the way in which it will appar- ently jump over houses supplied with water from the same
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