WHAT WE BREATHE 61 



contracted the disease from some tuberculous 

 cattle which he had on his farm. The writer 

 goes on to say, " This case is worthy of special 

 attention, inasmuch as it indicates that in addition 

 to the danger of contracting the disease from the 

 use of milk or meat derived from tuberculous 

 animals, the tending of such animals may serve to 

 convey the infection to man possibly much more 

 frequently than has hitherto been supposed." 



In addition to the above instances of the respon- 

 sible part played by air in the dissemination of 

 consumption many others might be cited, but 

 perhaps the most striking is that in which a 

 scientific assistant of Tappeiner contracted the 

 disease, and succumbed to it, in the course of some 

 experiments which were being made to ascertain 

 whether consumption could be communicated to 

 animals by spraying them with an emulsion of 

 the sputum of consumptive patients. 



It is of historical interest to note that these 

 experiments were being conducted by Tappeiner 

 three years before Robert Koch made the now 

 classical announcement to the scientific world that 

 he had succeeded in identifying, isolating, and in 

 cultivating outside the human body the specific 

 cause of consumption in the shape of the now 

 familiar bacillus tuberculosis. The opinion ex- 

 pressed by Koch at the Congress on Tuberculosis 



