BACILLUS OF TUBERCULOSIS. 285 



Hypothesis of Transmissibility of Tubercle Bacilli to 

 the Foetus. Baumgarten and others have advanced a 

 hypothesis to account for certain obscure cases of tuber- 

 culosis namely, that of the transmissibility of tubercle 

 bacilli from the mother to the unborn babe. There 

 seems to be some evidence of the possible transmission 

 of tubercular poison from the mother to the foetus in 

 animals. The first authentic case recorded is that 

 reported by Johne of an eight-months-old calf foetus; 

 other cases have since been reported. With regard to 

 tuberculosis in the human foetus the evidence is not so 

 clear, though several cases have been reported of tuber- 

 culosis in very young babies only a few weeks old, and 

 two cases are recorded of placental tuberculosis. The 

 fact that statistics show a greater frequency of tuber- 

 cular diseases in children during the first than in the 

 following years of life does not strengthen the hypo- 

 thesis of infection in utero ; for nursing babies would 

 naturally be more exposed to infection through the 

 mother's milk and through personal contact than others, 

 and, beside, the more tender the life of the infant the more 

 susceptible it would be ordinarily to indirect infection 

 from a tuberculous mother. Experimental proof, how- 

 ever, of the actual transmission of tubercle bacilli from 

 the mother to the foetus in animals has recently been 

 furnished. De Blenzi found that in five out of eighteen 

 cases in guinea-pigs such transmission of bacilli did 

 take place, and Gartner confirmed the same in numer- 

 ous experiments on rabbits, mice, and canaries. The 

 infection resulted not only from animals affected with 

 general miliary tuberculosis, but also from local dis- 

 ease of the lungs; but in the majority of cases very 

 few bacilli were transmitted to the foetus so few, 



