134 Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



our Indians, who eat diseased beef raw, 50 per cent, die of tuber- 

 culosis, while among the northern Indians, who never see beef, 

 it is relatively unknown, goes to show that the conditions being 

 favorable the infection passes readily from ox to man." 



Professor Law used this argument in an article published 

 last month: "I deny that it is shown that the infection 

 passes readily. Coincidence is the only thing established. 

 Conditions that favor the spread of this disease from hu- 

 man to human also contribute to its dissemination from 

 bovine to bovine." Kivers and railways often run side 

 by side for the reason that nature in such places favors 

 both, and not because there is any relation between them, or that 

 one is necessary to the other. Since we know the cause of tuber- 

 cle, will any one have the temerity to assert that cattle must be 

 in close proximity in order that infection may pass from man 

 to man? Or, if there is a healthy herd of cattle on an island not 

 inhabited by mankind, and we wish to spread tuberculosis among 

 them, will it be argued that it is necessary to send a number 

 of consumptive people there, as well as a few tuberculous cattle? 

 If so, the answer is simple. The tubercle bacillus is not a para- 

 site requiring an intermediary bearer. In the fish-eating frozen 

 regions, where cattle are not kept, the bacillus meets obstacles 

 fatal to it. If eating diseased meat raw is such a potent factor, 

 why is it a fact that the carnivora rarely develop the disease? 

 Again, beef is not so highly infecting. In many tuberculous ani- 

 mals the muscles or meat is not diseased. It is not necessary to 

 speak of cooking as a safeguard at this time. This paper deals 

 only with bacilli that are capable of infection, and not with those 

 that have been destroyed, or are therefore harmless. Why hunt 

 for a wild tribe who eat beef raw, when we have the better evi- 

 dence of millions of our kind who drink milk and eat its products 

 raw, and we do not find 50 per cent, of them dying annually 

 from tuberculosis and all other diseases put together? And it 

 has never been shown that human tuberculosis was the result 

 of infection obtained from cattle, either by germs taken into the 

 system by inhalation, or by the ingestion of the products of 



