1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No, 4. 323 



The alarming prevalence, the obscure origin and the almost 

 invariable fatal termination of tuberculosis, render a better 

 knowledge of the disease most desirable. The records of 

 the investigations relating to this subject, at the present time 

 are scattered everywhere through medical literature, espe- 

 cially in periodical journals ; and we can see the importance 

 of the subject, when we find it stated on good authority that 

 tuberculosis causes one-seventh of the mortality, and, if 

 children and old people are excluded, from one-third to one- 

 fourth of the death rate of the whole population. (" British 

 Medical Times and Gazette.") 



Does this disease exist in animals, and is it as prevalent 

 as in the human family ? I here insert a few statements from 

 the "Springfield Republican," of Oct. 13, 1889. It says: 

 The French congress, held last year for the study of tuber- 

 culosis, decided that it was as prevalent among cattle as 

 among human beings; and, in Paris alone, 11,592 out of 

 50,825 of the people died of tubercular disease in 1888 

 (about one-fourth). It may be new to some, that the 

 bacilli are found in cattle, both in the meat (although 

 apparently undiscovered) and in milk, which, being fed to 

 other animals, has been followed by consumption ; and it 

 states also that a metropolitan meat inspector in London 

 testified that eighty per cent of the meat sent to market 

 had tubercular disease, and the fact that the use of this 

 diseased meat for food could transmit consumption to man 

 vvas so clear as to make it dangerous to permit the sale of 

 such meat. As to the milk of tuberculous cows, this same 

 congress came to the unanimous conclusion that there was 

 positive danger in the use of the milk of these infected 

 cows. It used to be thought that the mammary glands 

 should be subject to or have the disease, no matter what the 

 conditions of the other organs were, to make the milk 

 positively harmful. Experiments and observations at the 

 present day prove that this opinion is erroneous. 



No event in the history of the investigation of this disease 

 has attracted the attention so universally and with so much 

 interest as did the announcement of Dr. Koch in 1882. In 

 his "Etiology of Tuberculosis" are these expressions: 

 " Since by far the greatest number of cases of tuberculosis 



