518 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



added to the food of the experimental animal. This was done in the 

 case of 1 pig, 8 guinea-pigs and 10 calves; and of these, the pig, 6 

 guinea-pigs and 8 calves became tuberculous. In these experiments 

 the tuberculous matter had been taken sometimes from a bovine, 

 sometimes from a human source, and it is noteworthy that each ani- 

 mal received only a single dose of it. 



Other experiments with manifestly tuberculous matter are recorded 

 by Dr. Woodhead among a number of investigations made in the 

 course of his own inquiry undertaken for us. He found this matter, 

 given (uncooked) to various animals, gave rise to tuberculous dis- 

 ease in all the pigs (7) and all the cats (5) that received it, and in 

 50 guiuea-pigs out of 76. 



These more particular experiments by Drs. Martin and Wood- 

 head, made with matter that had been identified as tuberculous, add 

 much force to the inference derived from Dr. Martin's more general 

 experience. They indicate, in the material used in feeding, the 

 element that is dangerous to the healthy animals which have been 

 fed. 



We cannot refuse to apply, and we do not hesitate to apply, to 

 the case of the human subject the evidence thus obtained from a 

 variety of animals that differ widely in their habits of feeding, — 

 herbivora, carnivora, omnivora. As regards man, we must believe 

 — and here we find ourselves agreeing with the majority of those 

 who gave evidence before us — that any person who takes tubercu- 

 lous matter into the body as food incurs some risk of acquiring 

 tuberculous disease. By "tuberculous matter" we mean here, of 

 course, that which is capable of giving rise to tuberculosis in lower 

 animals. This matter may be found in parts of animals affected by 

 the disease. It is known to the naked eye by some well-marked 

 though various characters, and microscopically by the all but cer* 

 tain discovery of characteristic bacilli, — the bacilli of tubercle. 



It is this same matter, however, — known by naked-eye characters 

 that are very closely the same in man and in animals, and by micro- 

 scopical characters that are all but identical, — that gives rise to 

 tuberculosis in the human subject. And we find the present to be a 

 convenient occasion for stating explicitly that we regard the disease 

 as being the same disease in man and in the food animals, no matter 

 though there are differences in the one and the other in their mani- 

 festations of the disease ; and that we consider the bacilli of tubercle 

 to form an integral part of the disease in each, and (whatever be its 

 origin) to be transmissible from man to animals and from animals to 

 animals. Of such transmissions there exists a quantity of evidence, 

 altogether conclusive, derived from experiment. It is with the trans- 



