Tuberculosis. 131 



subject it is plain that where cattle are few or absent consumption 

 is relatively less prevalent in man. In northern Norway, Sweden, 

 I^apland and Finland where reindeer constitute the chief farm 

 stock, about Hudson Bay and in the islands of the Pacific where no 

 cattle exist, and in the vScottish Hebrides, Iceland and Newfound- 

 land where cattle are few, tuberculosis is far less prevalent in man. 

 In Algiers (a resort of consumptives) the cattle are few and live 

 in the open air apart from the cities and tuberculosis does not in- 

 crease among the natives. In Italy (another resort of consump- 

 tives) where cattle are housed, tuberculosis has become the 

 scourge of man and beast (Perroncito). In Australia (a great re- 

 sort for the English consumptive) the disease, formerly unknown, 

 has become exceedingly prevalent, and the same is becoming true 

 of our own Minnesota formerly so lauded as favorable to weak 

 lungs. 



In the temperate regions of Europe and the United States at 

 least every eighth death is due to consumption. Dr. Biggs tells 

 us that in New York City every fifth death is from tuberculosis of 

 the lungs. He adds that in the Charity hospital of the city 30 

 per cent, of all deaths show old lesions of tuberculosis now be- 

 come stationary. He quotes a Vienna hospital pathologist to the 

 effect that he finds similar old stationary lesions in 85 per cent, of 

 all post mortem examinations. This leaves but 15 per cent, who 

 have not suffered from tuberculosis. 



But our Northwest Indians furnish the most striking illustra- 

 tion of infection derived from cattle and fostered in man by unhy- 

 gienic surroundings. Dr. Treon in the American Practitioner de- 

 scribes the poor emaciated diseased animals furnished to the tribes, 

 how the Indians eat the liver, tallow and entrails raw and fresh, 

 and how the carcass is dried, pounded and packed in the skins to 

 be eaten later without cooking. The meat is eaten even though 

 the animal may have died of disease. Dr. Holder in the Medical 

 Record {K.Vi%Ms\. 13, 1892) gives the Indian mortality from con- 

 sumption as 50 per cent, of all deaths at Green Bay, Wis., Tulalip, 

 W. T., and Western Shoshone, Nev. He says that at Lower 

 Brule, Dak., scrofula is present in 60 per cent, of the Sioux under 

 21 years and that at Crow Creek, Dak., 50 out of a total Indian 

 population of i ,200 die yearly of consumption and scrofula. Taken 



