93 



from Tuberculosis both clinically and pathologically. 

 When I have fully dealt with these two diseases— and 

 I intend to review at length all the available Conti- 

 nental and British evidence and speculations on avian 

 tuberculosis — my readers, professional and lay alike, 

 will see the justice of my remarks. 



Before I begin the consideration of Septicaemia, 

 which I hope to do next month, a short account of 

 the most recent instance out of those I know of this 

 disease being mistaken for Tuberculosis may be of 

 interest as shewing the mischief that may happen 

 through these errors of judgement. In the first place 

 let me briefly point out that even if avian tuberculosis 

 does exist it must of necessity bear at least some 

 remote likeness to the same disease as it attacks 

 humans. That is to say its mode of incidence upon 

 the community, and its rate of progress should 

 among other things carry some points of resemblance 

 apart from any similarity of pathological manifes- 

 tations. Although tuberculosis is an infectious disease 

 and is carried from one individual to another by 

 means of its special bacillus, yet it is never found to 

 exist in violently epidemic forms except in countries 

 where it has been newly introduced. Its great 

 characteristic is that it is both endemic and sporadic, 

 i.e. in plain language it is always with us in a more or 

 less steady average, and attacks isolated individuals 

 rather than whole communities. As regards its rate 

 of progress — well, every old village dame knows as 

 well as I do that its course, as to rapidity, is in all 

 save rare instances more like the manners of England 

 in the fifteenth century than those of America in the 

 twentieth. 



Now to the story. A certain fancier of Canaries, 

 having in course of long time and by means of much 

 money got together a team of about eighty high class 

 birds, suddenly found them to be dying off at the rate 



