514 Tuberculosis. 



In examinations made for the East Prussian Herd Book Association up to 

 July 1, 1907, by Miiller & Hassler, tubercle bacilli were demonstrated in 156 of 

 2,949 milkings from herds consisting of 30 to 200 animals each. The sources of 

 infection were afterwards found to be, the udder in 113 instances, the uterus in 17, 

 open lung tuberculosis in 20, pulmonary and intestinal tuberculosis in one instance. 

 In 5 cases open tuberculosis could not be demonstrated. 



Until very recently the general impression prevailed that 

 the bacilli were rarely found in the blood and then only for 

 a short time after the discharge of a tuberculous focus, thus 

 especially in the beginning of acute miliary tuberculosis. This 

 view was based upon the experimental observations of Nocard 

 and MacFadyean according to which all comparatively large 

 masses of bacilli injected intravenously disappeared after a few 

 hours. In the meantime Neumann & Wittgenstein as well as 

 Bongert, showed that tubercle bacilli injected into the blood 

 could remain there for one month. More recent investigations 

 have shown that in the course of tuberculosis and even in the 

 very first stages of the disease, tubercle bacilli are by no means 

 infrequently present in the blood and can be demonstrated 

 by the microscopical examination of small quantities of blood. 

 In such cases providing they are not too abundant, an eruption 

 of miliary tubercles does not necessarily follow. Evidently the 

 animal organism has the power to overcome an infection by a 

 limited number of bacilli. Miliary tuberculosis seems to de- 

 velop only after an invasion of germs in large masses. 



After Liebermeister called attention to the comparatively frequent occurrence 

 of tubercle bacilli in the circulating blood of consumptives, having demonstrated 

 their presence by guinea pig inoculations in 30% of the second stage cases and 

 in 60% of the third stage cases examined. Forsyth, Lippmann, Schnitter and 

 Eosenberger demonstrated their presence with the microscope. Booth showed 

 microscopically the presence of tuliercle bacilli in the blood of two apparently 

 healthy cows suffering with pulmonary tuberculosis. On the other hand Schroeder 

 & Cotton in an examination of 42 cattle could not demonstrate bacilli in the blood 

 either with a microscope or by means of guinea pig inoculations. Eavenel and 

 McFarland arrived at similar negative results in the examination of blood of tuber- 

 culous human beings and expressed the belief that Eosenberger found acid-fast para 

 tubercle; bacilli which are frequently present in distilled water. This question which 

 is of clinical importance is therefore, as yet, unsettled. 



The muscles or flesh of tuberculous animals also contain 

 bacilli only in rare cases. When tuberculous masses (lymph 

 glands) are found between the muscles or when a general tuber- 

 culosis is present following an artificial intravenous injection, 

 the bacilli which are found in the muscles after a few days are 

 as a rule no longer virulent. The expressed juice from muscle, 

 even of badly infected cattle, is infectious only in exceptional 

 cases. Further, the demonstration of tubercle bacilli in such 

 cases has been possible only by intraperitoneal or subcutaneous 

 infection, while attempts to produce infection through feeding 

 experiments have all produced negative results. 



Perroncito injected muscle juice obtained from tuberculous animals into the 

 peritoneal cavity of several hundred guinea pigs and rabbits with not a single 

 positive result. Nocard demonstrated in this manner that the expressed muscle 

 juice of only one cow out of 21 with general tuberculosis was infectious. Galtier 



