52 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



should be assisted bj the stomach tube and by irrigation of the 

 colon. In one of the cases seen by the writer large doses of mor- 

 phine had been administered in order to check the vomiting and 

 purging and to relieve the pain; in this case death resulted. The 

 danger of arresting the elimination of the poison in all cases of 

 food poisoning can not be too emphatically condemned. 



Meat Poisoning. — The diseases most frequently transmitted 

 from the lower animals to man by the consumption of the flesh or 

 milk of the former by the latter are tuberculosis, anthrax, symp- 

 tomatic anthrax, pleuro-pneumonia, trichinosis, mucous diarrhcea, 

 and actinomycosis. It hardly comes within the scope of this article 

 to discuss in detail the transmission of these diseases from the 

 lower animals to man. However, the writer must be allowed to 

 offer a few opinions concerning some mooted questions pertaining 

 to the consumption of the flesh of tuberculous animals. Some 

 hold that it is sufficient to condemn the diseased part of the tuber- 

 culous cow, and that the remainder may be eaten with perfect 

 safety. Others teach that " total seizure " and destruction of 

 the entire carcass by the health authorities are desirable. Ex- 

 periments consisting of the inoculation of guinea pigs with the 

 meat and meat juices of tuberculous animals have given differ- 

 ent results to several investigators. To one who has seen tuber- 

 culous animals slaughtered, these differences in opinion and in 

 experimental results are easily explainable. The tuberculous in- 

 vasion may be confined to a single gland, and this may occur 

 in a portion of the carcass not ordinarily eaten; while, on the 

 other hand, the invasion may be much more extensive and the 

 muscles may be involved. The tuberculous portion may con- 

 sist of hard nodules that do not break down and contaminate 

 other tissues in the process of removal, but the writer has seen a 

 tuberculous abscess in the liver holding nearly a pint of broken- 

 down infected matter ruptured or cut in removing this organ, and 

 its contents spread over the greater part of the carcass. This ex- 

 plains why one investigator succeeds in inducing tuberculosis in 

 guinea pigs by introducing small bits of meat from a tuberculous 

 cow into the abdominal cavity, while another equally skillful bac- 

 teriologist follows the same details and fails to get positive results. 

 N^o one desires to eat any portion of a tuberculous animal, and the 

 only safety lies in " total seizure " and destruction. That the milk 

 from tuberculous cows, even when the udder is not involved, may 

 contain the specific bacillus has been demonstrated experimentally. 

 The writer has suggested that every one selling milk should be 

 licensed, and the granting of a license should be dependent upon 

 the application of the tuberculin test to every cow from which 



