54 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



This was not only proved by Pasteur, but the experi- 

 ment led to inoculation with attenuated virus as a protection 

 against the disease. From 1882 to 1888 there were 1,700,000 

 sheep vaccinated against anthrax, with a mortality of 0-85 per 

 cent. The mortality of sheep in anthrax districts has gone 

 down from 10 per cent, to less than 1 per cent., while cattle 

 are also protected by vaccination. M. Eoux tells us that 

 insurance companies insert a clause in their agreements 

 by which protective inoculation is rendered compulsory. 

 Anthrax might enter the body of a man through a wound, 

 a scratch on the hands in wool-sorting, or the spores might get 

 into the mouth with dust or with food, and so find their way 

 into the stomach and intestinal tract. 



The bacillus of tuberculosis, or consumption, was discovered 

 by Dr. Eobert Koch. It is one which in all probability may 

 be conveyed to human beings from certain of the lower 

 animals. The milk of cows suffering from tubercle of the 

 udder contains bacilli which can infect animals, and it has 

 been suggested by a distinguished pathologist that such milk 

 may be a cause of tubercular disease of the abdominal glands 

 in hand-fed children. 



At the recent French Congress on Tuberculosis the conclu- 

 sion was arrived at " that the disease can be transmitted to man 

 from the lower animals by the ingestion of diseased meat and 

 milk." In consequence of this the French Government have 

 made the exposure of tuberculous meat for sale illegal. In 

 the United Kingdom many high authorities have decided that 

 the meat and milk of tuberculous cattle is dangerous to health. 

 It will be small comfort to those who oppose vaccination by 

 humanised lymph on the ground that a blood-poison is intro- 

 duced from another individual, to know that a virulent blood- 

 poison may be taken in with animal food. jMonkeys, cattle, 

 rabbits, guinea-pigs, fowls, and, in short, all warm-blooded 

 animals, are susceptible to tuberculosis. Consumption was 

 believed to be contagious in Languedoc, Spain, and Portugal, 

 as Dr. EUiotson, writing fifty years ago, informs us, and also 

 in Italy. In these countries the clothes of a consumptive 

 who had died were burned or buried. The direct infectious- 

 ness of tuberculosis has been amply proved by experiments on 

 the lower animals, and, accidentally, in the case of man. It 

 would, of course, be impossible in one evening to review^ the 

 various specific bacteria of disease. I must content myself 

 with naming some of the diseases of which bacteria are known 

 to be the cause, or in which full proof — that is, visual proof — of 

 their existence may be looked for any day, as in hydrophobia. 

 These are erysipelas, pneumonia, leprosy, diphtheria, typhus, 

 typhoid, septicaemia or blood-poisoning, cholera, relapsing 

 fever, two forms of ophthalmia, anthrax, tuberculosis. 



