No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUKE. 681 



tuberculosis in cattle. Koch's statement, at London, was that it" 

 one is in doubt, in a given case, whether the disease comes from 

 cattle or from man the doubt can be removed by inoculating a cow 

 or calf with the material from llic man. If the calf contracts 

 the tuberculosis it shows that the man can't get it from the 

 bovine, but if the calf does not take it then it shows that the man 

 caught it from another man. If we accept that it would seem 

 from this report of the German commission that one-fourth came 

 from cattle. NAHiether that is a safe means of determining remains 

 to be ascertained by further investigation. He found in five cases 

 that two, with the germs having the characteristics of the bacilli 

 taken from cattle, which was determined by being inoculated in 

 cattle, and died. 



MR. RODGERS: Can the doctor say that there is any cure for 

 tuberculosis? I see that some experiments are being made, way 

 up in the mountains, by having patients in the open air as much 

 as possible and they expect to bring about an entire cure by having 

 tents located on top of mountains. 



DR. PEARSON: There is at this time a great interest taken in 

 the establishment of camps or open-air hospitals to accommodate 

 people suffering wath consumption and the idea is to have people who 

 are afflicted in this way spend as much time as possible in out-door 

 life. They do improve and sometimes recover most astonishingly. 

 It is impossible to say how permanently they do improve; that 

 they improve is beyond doubt. Perhaps some of them remaia 

 well throughout life and others may suffer and decline later on, 

 through a lapse of the disease. The question of tuberculosis is 

 rather an interesting one. When tuberculosis afflicts a person a 

 considerable amount of tissue, oftentimes in the lung, is lost and 

 a cavity is formed and a portion of the lung sloughs away. When 

 a person recovers, that lung does not grow again, but the part of 

 the lung that is lost is permanently lost and what is meant by 

 recovery is that it ceases to progress, but the scar always remains 

 and sometimes the germ of the disease remains but is enclosed in 

 a rather thick fibrous wall, fenced in and, for the time being, does 

 no harm. When the system is debilitated from some cause or other 

 they are there just as smoldering hay is covered up and when the 

 air gets to it it blazes forth. 



A Member: I think I heard the doctor say something to this 

 effect, where young animals have been born in the midst of tuber- 

 cular surroundings they have grown up without being affected. 

 Isn't it true that those animals offer greater resistance than those 

 that have never been sjibjected to the disease? 



DR. PEARSON: I think that is true, and the same thing is ob- 

 U 



