1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT— No. 4. 333 



its ravages in the animals that live in association with man, — 

 cattle, goats, swine, hens, rabbits, gninea-pigs, rats, mice, cats, 

 and, to a less extent, in sheep, dogs and horses, — and also in 

 many wild beasts and birds, of which man makes articles of diet, 

 one may well stand in awe of the prospect. When we consider 

 that the expectorations and other infecting products of all these 

 different races can be dried up without losing their virulence, and, 

 as fine dust, can be carried on the winds to man and beast, we 

 realize how ubiquitous the germ must be in certain localities, and 

 we wonder how the victim of transient sore throat or bronchitis can 

 run such a gauntlet and escape unscathed. When we consider that 

 man has to run all such risks, and, in addition, in his tender years 

 the danger of tuberculous milk, and in his mature age the peril of 

 tuberculous meat as well, we are compelled to conclude that, 

 terrible as is the harvest now garnered by consumption, it would 

 be incomparably greater but for the strong force of vital resistance 

 opposed to the germ by a vigorous, healthy human system. But, 

 as the transient inflammation throws even the robust system open 

 to the attack of the tubercle bacillus, no one can count himself free 

 from a danger so wide-spread and insidious. As we learn more of 

 the tuberculosis germ and its habits, one by one of the supposed 

 grounds of safety slide from beneath our feet. ... It has been 

 claimed that the blood and flesh are destructive to the germ ; but 

 we find the bacillus carried in the blood from the distant tubercle 

 and secreted in the milk by the apparently healthy udder ; and, as 

 to the flesh, we find tubercles developing in the substance of the 

 red muscle itself. The flesh or milk of the beast suffering from 

 localized tuberculosis cannot therefore any longer be considered 

 safe, though that of the victim of generalized tuberculosis is nec- 

 essarily much more dangerous. Again, the disease has been held 

 to be intransmissible from the mother to the unborn offspring ; but, 

 although many experiments have failed to transmit it in this v»^ay, 

 the tuberculous cow, aborting at the eighth month of gestation, has 

 produced a foetus already tuberculous. Again, it has been held that 

 salting the meat kills the germ ; but culture experiments show the 

 bacillus alive months after the meat has been put in a strong pickle. 



Can the disease be exterminated, or how can it be cur- 

 tailed? is a serious question, in which the whole human 

 family are inte:ested. Some of the helps, as indicated by- 

 Professor Law : — 



1. Consumptive people must be secluded in such a way as to 

 prevent them from infecting their fellows or the lower animals. 



