RESULTS OBTAINED BY TUBERCULIN TESTING A CITY'S 



RETAIL MILK SUPPLY 

 By GEORGE: w. GOLER, M. D., and F. R. EIMXGER, rimr. G., 



Rochester, N. Y. 



TUBERCULOSIS FROM COW TO CHILD 



"From five to seven per cent, of all human tuberculosis is ascribable 

 to it. (Bovine Tuberculosis'}. Though it does not appear to play any 

 part in tuberculosis of the lungs the commonest type of this disease 

 in man yet it probably causes one-fifth of the tuberculosis of infancy 

 and childhood." 



Theobald Smith, M. D., 

 Professor of Comparative Pathology, 

 Harvard Medical School. 



Professor Smith was the first to discover the difference between human 

 and bovine tubercle bacilli. 



Whatever views men may hold relating to the frequency with 

 which bovine tuberculosis is conveyed to children through the 

 medium of cow's milk, it is assumed that every one interested 

 in the milk supply of cities, believes it to be desirable that all 

 milk shall come from tuberculin tested cattle, and that all cat- 

 tle shall be tested semi-annually, or at least annually. To secure 

 this much-to-be-desired test and to compel its enforcement by 

 law, it is necessary first, to show the frequency with which cat- 

 tle supplying a locality are infected by tuberculosis before a law 

 can be framed, passed and enforced for the protection of all 

 people against the transmission of tuberculosis through milk. 

 Because of the large number of cattle on many farms supplying 

 even a small city with milk, a demonstration of the frequency 

 of tuberculosis in a given locality is a long and arduous piece of 

 work. If a city is compelled to resort to the method of testing 

 cattle belonging to every herd in order to get evidence sufficient 

 for the passage and enforcement of a law against the sale of 

 milk from tuberculosis cattle, with the small laboratory facilities 

 and few workers in most cities, the task would be well-nigh 

 impossible of accomplishment. The practical hopelessness of 

 an attempt to secure the enforcement of a tuberculin test for all 

 milk coming to a city by resort to the test of individual herds, 

 leads us to propose that instead of attempting to test herds we 

 test samples from retailers, and wherever a retailer's sample re- 

 acts we hold the retailer of the milk responsible for the goods 

 he sells. If a sample of his milk is proven to make guinea pigs 

 re-act to an injection of 2 c. c. of tuberculin two months after 

 the animal has received a 5 c. c. injection of centrifugalized 

 cream or sediment, then the retailer is to be prevented from 



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