74 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



Deaths of children and other persons from tubercular disease caused by 



infected milk. 



A most convenient list of instances of this nature is in the annual 

 report of the New Hanipsliire State Board of Health, Vol. 13, 1895, pp. 

 37-31). The aullior says: "There is reason to believe that countless 

 thousands of deaths have occurred due to this source of infection, which 

 have not been thus ascribed and of which no record has been made." 

 *" * * "The foUowing- are some of the authenticated cases of acci- 

 dental infection which have come to our notice. It is not to be inferred 

 that they are of necessity all or the strongest on record." 



"Dr. Anderson of Seeland reports a case of a babe fed on the milk of a 

 cow having tuberculosis of the udder. The child died at six months 

 with tuberculosis. The mother also developed symptoms of the disease 

 after the child's birth. It was considered that both contracted the dis- 

 ease from the cow's milk.* 



"Ollivier.f at a meeting of the Academie de Medicine of Paris, stated 

 that a patient of his, a young woman twenty years old, of vigorous 

 health and without constitutional trouble, had acute tubercular menin- 

 gitis (inflammation of tlu^ membranes of the bi-ain of tubercular origin). 

 She had been educated at a boarding school where thirteen pui)ils had 

 been ill of, and six had died of tuberculosis within a few months. The 

 milk supplied to the school was from cows kept on the place. Upon 

 examination these animals were found to have tubercular ulcers on 

 their udders, and after being slaughtered were found to be generally 

 tuberculous. 



"A Scotch family, all of sturdy health, had a herd of cattle which 

 developed tuberculosis. Two daughters, being young, were brought 

 up on the milk. Their two older brothers were more found of whisky 

 than of milk. They are living, healthy and hearty, while their two 

 sisters are lying in their graves, victims of tuberculosis.J 



"In the practice of Dr. Stang, of Amorback, a well-developed five-year- 

 old boy from sound parents, whose ancestors on both sides were free 

 from hereditary taint, succumbed after a few weeks' illness with acute 

 miliary tuberculosis of the lungs and enormously enlarged mesenteric 

 glands. A short time before the }>arents had their family cow killed 

 and found her the victim of advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. § 



"Dr. Denune records the cases of four infants in the Child's Hospital 

 at Berne, the issue of sound parents, without any tuberculous ancestry, 

 that died of intestinal and mesenteric tuberculosis, as the result of 

 feeding on the unsterilized milk of tuberculous cows.^ * * • 



* * * "A comparatively strong and healthy child of twenty-one 

 months, visited his uncle for a week. While there he drank the unsteril- 

 ized milk of a cow which was soon after condemned and killed in a 

 state of generalized tubei'culosis. A few weeks after his inMurn the 

 child began to fail and died three months after the fatal visit, a mere 

 skeleton, with tabes mesenterica, or consumption of the bowels." * * 



* Hatch Exp. Station of Mass. Ag'l. College. Rul. No. S. p. 1."). > 

 t Ractcriolo.sical World. Aug. "01 . translated from Allgem. Med. Cent. Zeit. : also la 



Semaine Medical. I'aris. Feb. L'.">. IS'.i:;. 



4 iJisciisslon on Tuberculosis. .Meeliutr Nat. Vet. Ass'n., Ijondon. May, '83. Extracted from 

 Lecture to Md. Sanitary Council by«l>r. Kobt. Ward, ISSO. p. 10. 



§ Law : Cornell Iniversity I'lxp. Stat. Bui. No. <>.'>. p. l."!7. 



*il Law : Cornell University Exp. Stat. Bui. No. (>."). p. 137. 



