BACTERIUM TUBERCULOSIS 153 



ing on it or sweeping it. The dust arising from soiled 

 handkerchiefs or cloths is likewise a danger. Park 

 says that as many as 5,()00,000,()00 tubercle bacilli 

 may be expectorated by a consumptive person in 

 twenty-four hours. Since the ordinary uneducated 

 consumptive is very careless of his expectoration, the 

 danger is obvious. The great movement against the 

 "white plague," now active throughout the world, is 

 rapidly correcting the habits of careless patients. 



Tuberculosis may also be transmitted by the infec- 

 tion of food in the soiled hands of patients, or flies 

 may feed upon sputum and carry the germs upon 

 their body. The study of the transmission of tuber- 

 culosis from the cow to the human being has now r 

 progressed to a point near solution. Koch said that 

 the bovine bacillus is not infective for the human 

 being. This is true for tuberculosis of the lungs, 

 but children are susceptible to the bovine form, 

 which can produce in them tuberculosis of the glands 

 of the neck and abdominal cavity, and of the meninges. 

 Cows may give off tubercle bacilli in their milk even 

 when there is very slight evidence of the disease in 

 their body Milk, unless it is known to come from a 

 non-tuberculous cow, should not be used. 



The tubercle bacillus may be eliminated from the 

 human body by the feces, and health authorities are 

 requiring the disinfection of sewage from sanatoria. 

 Tuberculosis is very rarely hereditary, but children born 

 of tuberculous parents are not quite as robust as chil- 

 dren born of non-tuberculous persons, and therefore 

 they more easily contract the disease from the sur- 

 roundings contaminated by ill parents. 



