146 MILK AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH CHAP. 



age 8^ years), while the human tubercle bacilli were from 

 patients 8 to 32 years old (average age I7f years). 



Fibiger and Jensen l tested upon cattle the virulence of 

 bacilli from 29 cases of tuberculosis in man. Eight of 

 these cases contained bacilli able to produce generalised 

 tuberculosis in cattle in the same way as the bacilli most 

 frequently found in spontaneous tuberculosis in cattle. They 

 may therefore be considered as bacilli of bovine type. In 

 6 of them the patients were children (4 months to 7 years 

 old). In 5 of the children the tuberculosis was undoubtedly 

 primary, and in 1 child it was probably primary in the in- 

 testines and mesenteric glands. 



" Information in these cases has proved that 3 children 

 had for a long time (2^ months to 4 years) been fed partly 

 on raw milk, produced, in one case, from a very tuberculous 

 stock and containing a cow with tuberculosis of the udder. 

 In a fourth case, the child had been partly fed, probably for 

 a year, on unboiled milk, only warmed up." In the seventh 

 and eighth cases the patients were male adults. From 

 the autopsy it was quite probable that the seventh was also 

 a case of primary tuberculosis of the intestines. 



In the remaining 20 cases of different kinds, 6 patients 

 were children. In all of them the isolated bacilli possessed 

 only a very low degree of virulence for cattle or no virulence 

 at all. Of these 20 cases, primary abdominal tuberculosis 

 was found in 1 child and 3 adults ; generalised tuberculosis 

 in 2 children. In one case the bacilli were found only by 

 the inoculation of a guinea-pig with an apparently quite 

 healthy mesenteric gland from a child without any tuberculous 

 lesions. One was a case of tuberculous mammae, and 10 

 were consumptive adults whose sputum had been used for 

 isolating the cultures. 



One of the most recent and important contributions to 

 this aspect of tuberculosis is that of Park and Krumwiede ' 2 

 and their assistants. These investigators determined the 

 type of tubercle bacillus present in tuberculous material sent 



1 Trans. 6th Internal. Congress on Tuberculosis ( Washington], vol. iv. pt. 2, 

 p. 672. 



2 "The relative Importance of the Bovine and Human Types of Tubercle 

 Bacilli in the different Forms of Human Tuberculosis," Studies from the Research 

 Laboratory, Department of Health, New York City, vol. v., 1910. 



