62 BACTERIA IN DAILY LIFE 



recently held in London, that human and bovine 

 tuberculosis are distinct diseases, is still the subject 

 of contention and experimental investigation. Even 

 if the opinion of this great authority is correct, and 

 in this connection it is interesting to note that 

 already in 1896 this opinion was brought forward 

 by Smith in the Medical Record at a time when 

 Koch was maintaining the identity of human and 

 bovine tuberculosis granted that Koch is correct, 

 it should not, as so many fear, cause any relaxation 

 in the efforts which have been at last made to safe- 

 guard our dairy produce by reasonable hygienic 

 precautions ; for even if tuberculosis is not trans- 

 missible from the cow to man, we know that in 

 the hygienic supervision of our dairy industry we 

 place a great barrier between us and the bacillus 

 tuberculosis and those numerous other disease 

 germs which can and do gain access to milk from 

 the personnel of a dairy and so sp'read infection. 

 With the alarming prevalence of consumption is 

 it not justifiable to regard as certain that a definite 

 proportion of the people engaged in milking, for 

 example, are consumptive ? And knowing, as we 

 now do, how such persons can give off the germs 

 of the disease in the simple act of speaking, the 

 contamination of our milk with human tubercle 

 bacilli must be regarded almost as a certainty. 

 Would it not be reasonable that a code of simple 



