1NTERCOMMUNICABIL1TY 345 



elude as a result of these experiments that in a preponderating 

 number of cases of human tuberculosis, tubercle bacilli were found 

 distinguishable from the bovine bacilli of Perlsucht in cows 

 morphologically, culturally, and in pathogenic properties, but that 

 exceptionally in man tubercle bacilli occur which cannot be distin- 

 guished. They hold, nevertheless, that the possibility of infection in 

 man, under certain circumstances, by milk from tuberculous udders is 

 proved. They found that generalised tuberculosis was produced in 

 animals by injecting strains of tubercle bacilli obtained from tuber- 

 culous diseases in children.* 



The Eoyal Commission appointed in this country has also issued 

 an interim report (1904), signed by Sir M. Foster and Professors Sims 

 Woodhead, Sidney Martin, MacFadyean, and Boyce. The Commission 

 was appointed to inquire and report with respect to tuberculosis : 



(1) Whether the disease in animals and man is one and the same ; 



(2) whether animals and man can be reciprocally infected with it; 

 and (3) under what conditions, if at all, the transmission of the 

 disease from animals to man takes place, and what are the circum- 

 stances favourable or unfavourable to such transmission. 



The first line of inquiry upon which they entered may be stated 

 in their own words, as follows : 



What are the effects produced by introducing into the body of the bovine animal 

 (calf, heifer, cow), either through the alimentary canal as food, or directly into the 

 tissues by subcutaneous or other injection, tuberculous material of human origin, 

 i.e., material containing living tubercle bacilli obtained from various cases of tuber- 

 culous disease in human beings, and how far do these effects resemble or differ from 

 the effects produced by introducing into the bovine animal, under conditions as similar 

 as possible, tuberculous material of bovine origin, i.e., material containing living 

 tubercle bacilli obtained from cases of tuberculous disease in the cow, calf, or ox ? 



We have up to the present made use, in the above inquiry, of more than twenty 

 different ** strains " of tuberculous material of human origin, that is to say, of material 

 taken from more than twenty cases of tuberculous disease in human beings, including 

 sputum from phthisical patients, and the diseased parts of the lungs in pulmonary 

 tuberculosis, mesenteric glands in primary abdominal tuberculosis, tuberculous 

 bronchial and cervical glands, and tuberculous joints. We have compared the 

 effects produced by these with the effects produced by several different strains of 

 tuberculous material of bovine origin. 



In the case of seven of the above strains of human origin, the introduction of the 

 human tuberculous material into cattle gave rise at once to acute tuberculosis, with 

 the development of widespread disease in various organs of the body, such as the 

 lungs, spleen, liver, lymphatic glands, etc. In some instances the disease was of 

 remarkable severity. 



In the case of the remaining strains, the bovine animal into which the tuberculous 

 material was first introduced was affected to a less extent. The tuberculous disease 

 was either limited to the spot where the material was introduced (this occurred, how- 

 ever, in two instances only, and these at the very beginning of our inquiry), or spread 

 to a variable extent from the seat of inoculation along the lymphatic glands, with, at 

 most, the appearance of a very small amount of tubercle in such organs as the lungs 

 and spleen. Yet tuberculous material taken from the bovine animal thus affected, 

 and introduced successively into other bovine animals, or into guinea-pigs from which 



* Tuberkulose-Arbeiten aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte, Heft i., 1904, p. 34. 



