1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 403 



animal to animal and from man to animals by cohabitation and inhala- 

 tion of dust containing dried sputa. Many veterinarians insist on the 

 slaughter of all suspected animals, and at the same time forbid the use 

 of their milk or meat for food. 



Infection can undoubtedly be produced by constantly feeding animals 

 with tuberculous milk or meat, but even so enthusiastic an authority as 

 Professor Arloing acknowledges that this is the least important source 

 of contagion. We certainly do not use such products constantly for 

 our daily food, for the number of cattle found tuberculous averages 

 about live in one thousand. 



The chief source of danger, both for animals and men, lies in the 

 inhalation of dust containing the dried sputa, in those localities where 

 the disease is prevalent and the population dense. Cattle kept in such 

 localities for milk, in badly ventilated barns, are diseased sometimes as 

 high as forty per cent to fifty per cent, and are certainly as liable to 

 contagion from tuberculous human beings as from one of their own 

 kind. Under these circumstances, even if we kill off all the tuberculous 

 animals, shall we have accomplished anything ? Will not cows, pigs 

 and chickens, coming in contact with tuberculous human beings, eating 

 their sputa and breathing it in the form of dust, again contract the dis- 

 ease ? Pet dogs and cats have done so. In my opinion, it is waste of 

 time, and sometimes unjustifiable destruction of property, to kill off all 

 our tuberculous animals, unless some means are adopted by the medical 

 profession to quarantine their own patients. 



In this part of the country people are beginning to have a horror of a 

 tuberculous cow or pig, but feel not the slightest fear from direct con- 

 tact with a person in an advanced stage of pulmonary tuberculosis, 

 living in the same room, eating from the. same dishes, and freely inhal- 

 ing their dried sputa. Nor did I ever know a case where precautions 

 were taken against the infection of cattle or other animals from tuber- 

 culous human beings. Now, as cattle are esj>ecially susceptible to 

 tuberculosis, and as they have already greatly benefited the human race 

 by furnishing it with the means of lessening the ravages of the small- 

 pox, and as cattle are affected with tuberculosis in the largest percent- 

 age where they are kept for milk in localities where the percentage of 

 the disease is also very great, I enter a plea that the severity of the 

 crusade against them be somewhat lessened, until some steps are taken 

 by the medical profession and boards of health to quarantine human 

 beings suffering from tuberculosis. 



I wish it understood that I believe tuberculosis to be a veiy contagious 

 disease, but slow in its course. Every one will acknowledge that the 

 danger from the milk and meat is the very least. The milk is diluted 

 by that of healthy cows, under which circumstances even direct inocula- 

 tion often fails ; and the meat is only diseased in five cases in one thou- 

 sand, and then is generally cooked. The danger from- inhalation of 

 dried sputa in the dust is very great either from man to man, or man to 

 animals. Therefore, let us wait a little before we condemn all the 

 cattle and other diseased animals ; for, even if we eradicate the disease 

 among them themselves, they will contract it again from man. 



