112 CONFERENCE ON MILK PROBLEMS 



bacilli can infect the human being just as the human bacilli 

 can infect cattle. 



Tuberculosis is present in cattle to a far greater extent 

 than we ordinarily think. It is said that in Cuba, where the 

 cattle are tested continuously, there is practically no tuber- 

 culosis among cattle, and that the farther north you go, the 

 more you find it among cattle, until when you get up to the 

 St. Lawrence River, you have got up to nearly forty per cent 

 of the cattle suffering from tuberculosis. Of course, you will 

 find herds that do not, and you will find others that have a very 

 large percentage. Tuberculosis is a very destructive disease 

 among cattle. It passes from one to the other very rapidly. 

 Before you realize it, all in your herd may be infected. 



Now, to produce the largest quantity of milk that they are 

 capable of, cows are kept in barns and in unsanitary stables, 

 where they have big, long troughs. The cow at the upper end 

 of the trough may have tuberculosis and infect the others all 

 the way down. They pick over the feed and infect one another 

 in that way. There is a very large percentage of tuberculosis 

 among dairy cattle, and where the dairy business is carried on 

 to the greatest extent, there is where you find the most of it. 

 You say, "Well, perhaps, there are only a few, and the cows 

 that have tuberculosis in one part of the body do not have it 

 in the milk." You have the results of the examinations of 

 your Board of Health h.ere in this city. Nearly seventeen per 

 cent of a large number of milk samples examined showed liv- 

 ing tubercle bacilli, virulent, infective, living tubercle bacilli. 

 You will say from that "Well, why isn't the whole population 

 infected with tuberculosis?" A post mortem examination in 

 the general hospital of Montreal, where an ordinary method 

 of autopsy is used, shows tuberculosis in sixty per cent of 

 human beings. This, of course, does not go through the whole 

 body and affect every gland there is. A more delicate tuber- 

 culin test shows that ninety per cent have it, and perhaps there 

 are more that have lesions somewhere. We won't all die of 

 tuberculosis. We have means of guarding ourselves against 

 tuberculosis. But yet the fact is that about ninety per cent 

 of human beings have tuberculosis small lesions, at least and 

 we do not all die of it. It does not always get the upper hand 

 of us. We can fight it off. But when you consider that per- 



