BAKER ON MILK OF TUBERCULOUS COWS. 77 



Aud, if the increase of the inenin<;itis is due to increase of pathogenic 

 microorganisms in the milk, then the ordinary amount of meningitis 

 may also be due to j)atliog('nic microorganisms in the milk. An imj)ort- 

 ant (|U('slion. which 1 wish to ])nt before members of the Academy for 

 invest iga( ion, is — What proportion of the meningitis in ^Michigan is 

 caused bv infectious milk of tuberculous cows? 



Tuberculous women do not usually have tuberculosis of the mammary 

 gland; and Prof. P.ang says that in "inoculation ex|)eriments made v ith 

 milk coming from eight phthisical women, although all these women 

 were affected with advanced tuberculosis, I never found the milk 

 virulent.''* 



Dr. Sims Woodhead says: '^Anyone who has worked at the subject 

 will have been struck by the fact that although tuberculosis in the 

 human subject is so frequently met with in 3'oung married women, 

 tubercular nuimmitis is extremely rare, — so rare in fact that Dr. D. 

 Hubermaasf was able to collect and record only some eight cases. In 

 cattle, on the other hand, where the mammary gland carries on its 

 functions under conditions which are far from healthy, or at any rate 

 far from normal, this tubercular mammitis is not by any means of 

 infrequent occurrence." J 



Inasmuch as it appears probable that ordinarily much of the menin- 

 gitis is caused by specific germs which gain entrance to the bodies of 

 the children by way of the alimentary canal, and as mother's milk is 

 seldom infected with tubercle bacilli, and cow's milk is known not in- 

 frequently to be so infected, it seems reasonable to believe that menin- 

 gitis mav be lessened bv measures to restrict the use of unsterilized 

 milk of tuberculous cows. 



CONCLUSIONS.§ 



1. Milk of tuberculous cows is liable to be infected with tubercle 

 bacilli. 



2. Milk is especially liable to be infectious when from a cow that has 

 tubercular disease of the udder. 



3. Milk infected with tubercle bacilli is known to cause the death of 

 calves fed on it. Also the death of pigs fed on it.* 



4. There is reason to believe that milk infected with tubercle bacilli 

 causes the death of many children, and tubercular disease of many 

 other children, fed on such milk. The great proportion of deaths from 

 tubercular disease of the bowels, and from tubercular meningitis, in 

 children at the ages when usually fed on cow's milk, is corroborative 

 evidence of this. 



5. Tuberculosis is not usually transmitted from cow to calf by 

 heredity. 



(I. At the present time tuberculosis is not caused by the timothy 

 bacillus, nor by any saprophyte; the disease is caused b}- the bacillus 



* Con5?i-ess ponr TEtude de la Tuberculose cbez riiomme et cbez les animaux, Paris, France, 

 1888. Premier Fascicule, pp. G'.>-T2. 



t P>eitrage znr klin. chir. ^Mitth. aus der-chir. Klinik zur Tubingen Band ii. Heft 2. 



t Laboratory Reports. Royal Oollese of Pbysicians. Kdin.. Vol. I. pp. 180-187. 



S Tbese conclusions bavea much broader l)asis than tlie facts mentioned in this brief paper: 

 the literature and data in the library and office of the State Board of Health are very 

 extensive. 



