BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS, ^^' 



BY 



C. A. GARY. 



The history of medicine informs us that Hippocrates 

 (400 B. C.) described many of the characteristic symptoms 

 and lesions of tuberculosis in man and animals. During 

 the middle ages tuberculosis in animals was considered con- 

 tagious and the flesh of infected carcasses was condemned 

 by law as unfit for human food. Many of those old laws 

 are still in force in Italy and Spain (Law). 



During the first eight decades of this century the common 

 and accepted theory was that tuberculosis was hereditary 

 and this was its chief, and possibly only, method of trans- 

 mission. 



In fact, the history of tuberculosis has been checkered 

 by numerous and various theories, because the exciting or 

 essential cause remained unknown until 1882, when Robert 

 Koch discovered the bacillus tuherculosis. 



No other disease is so widely distributed geographically ; 

 it is found in all climates and in all lands. It attacks man 

 and nearly all the domestic animals. It accompanies the 

 progress of civilization and seems to be most active during 

 the transitional stage from savagery or barbarism to civili- 

 zation. Artificial modes of living, without intelligent and 

 scrupulous sanitation, fosters and increases its virulency 

 and frequency. 



Tuberculosis annually claims more victims than small- 

 pox, cholera and yellow fever. An average of 14 per cent. 



(1) The term Tuberculosis embraces all forms of disease caused 

 by the bacillus tuherculosis, namely: consumption (tuberculosis of the 

 lungs), tubercular meningitis, tubercular peritonitis (pearl disease), 

 scrofula, consumption of the bowels, lupus (tuberculosis of the 

 skin) and, in fact, tuberculosis of any part of the body. 



