112 TUBERCULOSIS. 



convey infection to its lungs ; and in kissing it is quite possible 

 that a trace of bacillus-bearing sputum may be left on the child's 

 lips, and be afterwards swallowed. So, too, the tasting of food 

 before allowing the child to take it lest it should be too hot, may 

 leave bacilli in the spoon or on the mouthpiece of the feeding 

 bottle, and these would be conveyed with the food to the intestine 

 which seems to be a favourite point of attack. Similarly the 

 apparently harmless practice of wiping a child's mouth with a 

 handkerchief or sponge which has been used by a tuberculous 

 mother or nurse may have results which will prove fatal. These 

 are only some of the means by which the disease may be con- 

 veyed to children by those who are most attached to them ; but 

 they are sufficient to show that infection from cows' milk may 

 be much less frequent than some persons would have us believe. 



I pass on now, however, to the arguments which seem to 

 justify the conclusion that, although infection may be conveyed 

 to man from cattle, probably the cattle are as frequently infected 

 by man. If these arguments are sound, they will still further 

 support my opinion that the danger of infection through using 

 cows' milk has been much exaggerated, and that, in the case of 

 infants especially, "all the possibilities of transmission of tuber- 

 culous poison are surpassed in importance by the infection by 

 respiration ;" that another very great danger arises from the 

 accidental swallowing of tuberculous sputum ; and yet another 

 from the sucking of wounds, as in certain circumcision cases 

 which have been well authenticated, by persons suffering from 

 tuberculosis. 



Tuberculosis is spoken of by Woodhead as " one of the 

 most widespread diseases with which we have to deal, not in 

 this country only (i.e., Great Britain), but in the whole of 

 Northern Europe." Fraenkel says : — " Almost one-seventh of 

 all deaths are due to tuberculosis." Bland Sutton speaks of it 

 as " a disease of world-wide distribution, "and he adds — " Writ- 

 ing concerning that common manifestation of this disease — 

 pulmonary consumption, Hirsch, in his admirable Geographical 

 and Historical Pathology, states that it has held at all times and 

 amongst all civilised peoples a foremost place amongst the 

 national diseases, and that it extends over every part of the 

 habitable globe, and may be designated ubiquitous in the strictest 



