Tuberculosis. • i43 



following their nurses, and would not have been harmed by taking 

 the same amount of pure water as they took of milk. Apart from 

 the bacilli, which operated slowly, and which allowed these ani- 

 mals to live for years and even thrive after they had ceased taking 

 the milk, there was unquestionably in this secretion a definite 

 poison which undermined the health and stimulated the progress 

 of the tuberculous process. Accessions of bacilli are not denied, 

 but at the worst these acted tardily, and apart from the soluble 

 poisons their action must have been cumulative up to the cessation 

 of the milk feeding, so that immediately after the withdrawal of 

 the milk the morbid action should have been greater than at any 

 time before this, whereas in the cases in question improvement 

 dated from the change to dry coarse food. 



K. Yamagiva in his experiments on guineapigs obtained corre- 

 sponding results. After inoculation with tubercle, the admini- 

 stration of tuberculin greatly hastened the onset of general tuber- 

 culosis so that after a week tuberculous centres were found in 

 lymphatic glands, spleen, liver and lungs. 



If this is the result in guineapigs which though very subject to 

 tuberculosis are not easily poisoned b}^ tuberculin, how much 

 more so in man who is many thousand times more susceptible to 

 tuberculin ? The healthy guineapig is almost unaffected by 2 

 grammes of tuberculin, while man weighing eighty times as much 

 is seriousl}^ affected by yo gramme. In the tuberculous condi- 

 tion the guineapig reacts violently under }{ gramme, while man 

 is seriously affected by ywott gramme. Weight for weight being 

 considered it follows that the consumptive man is 20, 000 times 

 more susceptible to the tuberculin poisons than is the guineapig. 

 From this may be inferred the danger to the tuberculous man, of 

 meat or milk containing the poisons of tuberculin. 



It may be safely held as proved, by analogy, observation and 

 experiment that the soluble poisons of tuberculosis invariably 

 operate by exaggerating any existing tuberculous process, and that 

 blood and all animal fluids becoming charged with such poisons 

 uniformly tend to further endanger the health or even the life of 

 any person who may consume them while suffering from tubercu- 

 losis. 



We may freely allow that the tran.smission of the bacillus from 



