74 THE MILK SITUATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



other diseases, and the poisons that arc the cause of the high death rate from 

 abdominal diseases among children who have not passed the milk-drinking 

 period of life. 



There is an important moral side to the milk question which must not be 

 ignored. We may have the right a very doubtful right, to be exact to neglect 

 the dangers to which we as adults capable of judging and acting for ourselves 

 are exposed, but we have absolutely no right to neglect the conditions that 

 cause suffering and death among children. The failure to act and to act 

 quickly and unceasingly until a safe milk for children at least is within easy 

 reach of every mother may be characterized as barbarous, if not criminal, 

 indifference. 



Schroeder and Cotton, in a recent bulletin of the Bureau of Ani- 

 mal Industry, set forth that there is no more active agent than a 

 tuberculous cow for the increase of tuberculosis among animals and 

 its persistence among man. When it is reasonably estimated that 

 human tuberculosis causes over 160,000 deaths a year in the United 

 States, the importance of introducing every possible safeguard 

 against the extension of the white plague may well be appreciated. 



It is gratifying to note that the work of Schroeder and Cotton at 

 the Bethesda Experiment Station of the Bureau of Animal Industry 

 was considered sufficiently significant by the British Tuberculosis 

 Commission to make it the subject of a special investigation and a 

 separate report, the work of the commission fully confirming the 

 results obtained by our investigators. It is unfortunate that the 

 commission should have failed to expressly acknowledge the credit 

 due to these officials of the Government for the important discovery 

 that apparently healthy tuberculous cattle frequently expel large 

 numbers of virulent tubercle bacilli through the rectum with the 

 feces. 



The International Tuberculosis Congress held at Washington, 

 D. C., in September, 1908, resolved 



That preventive measures be continued against bovine tuberculosis and that 

 the propagation of this infection to man be recognized. 



In a comprehensive investigation by Dr. William H. Park and his 

 associates as to the sources of tubercular infection 7.22 per cent of 

 the patients examined proved on post-mortem examination to be in- 

 fected with bovine tubercle bacilli, 26 per cent of those under 5 years 

 of age showing infection from bovine sources. 



Dr. Theobald Smith, a leading authority on the subject, found that 

 10 per cent additional were conclusively demonstrated to be in- 

 fected with bacilli of bovine origin, thus demonstrating that about 

 17 or 18 per cent of all cases of tuberculosis which were the subject 

 of these investigations were traceable to bovine sources. This work 

 has been largely done since 1908, and the concensus of opinion among 

 scientific men has since strongly developed in favor of accepting the 

 view that tuberculosis is directly transmissible from cattle to man. 



Dr. William C. Welch, of Johns Hopkins University, corroborates 

 the statement (based on his observations) that bovine tuberculosis 

 causes from 15 to 25 per cent of certain cases of tuberculosis in 

 children under 5 years of age. 



In a paper by Dr. Park, director of the research laboratory of the 

 health department of New York, presented as recently as May 3, 1910, 

 before the National Association for the Study and Prevention of 

 Tuberculosis, it was stated that 22 out of 84 cases of tuberculosis in 



