Undulant fever as a public health problem is unique in many ways. It has been recognized as such only recently. That the principal source of the disease is in domestic stock no well informed observer doubts. There is no uniformity of opinion concerning the relative importance of channels through which the infection may reach man from animals. No student of the subject denies that infected milk may result in spreading undulant fever among humans. A recent analysis of 155 cases of sickness that occurred during 1929 and 1930 in Illinois and which were clinically and serologically diagnosed as undulant fever cast a very strong suspicion on raw milk supplies as the agent of transmission in a significant percentage of the total incidence. Observers elsewhere have found evidence that infected milk may be an important means of transmitting the disease. Furthermore, undulant fever prevalence may be on the up curve, potentially at least. If nothing is done to control the disease a great endemic wave of this ailment among men in the not far distant future is a catastrophe which is well within the realm of the possible. On the other hand a relatively small amount of judicious energy spent now in research and control may offset that possibility. For these reasons it seems of the greatest importance to bring to light all possible knowledge about the cause of undulant fever and means of controlling the spread of it. The accompanying report is a contribution to an important phase of this knowledge. Some controversy about the efficacy of pasteurization in destroying the causative organisms of undulant fever has arisen. Doubts created by this controversy will survive until the matter is settled by indisputable scientific experimentation. This report might be accepted as closing the chapter on one phase of the necessary experimentation.-ANDY HALL, Director of Public Health, Chairman, State Undulant Fever Committee.] Results of investigations made in recent years show that (a) cattle may be spontaneously infected with Brucella strains of Assistant Bacteriologist, State Department of Agriculture.
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