MEAT. 151 



Until the year 1901 it was the general consensus of opinion 

 among those who had made a study of the subject that bovine and 

 human tuberculosis were identical. In 1895, the Royal Commis- 

 sion on Tuberculosis said : " We find the present to be a conven- 

 ient occasion for stating explicitly that we regard the disease as being 

 the same disease in man and the food animals, no matter though 

 there are differences in the one and the other in their manifestations 

 of the disease ; and that we consider the bacilli of tubercle to form 

 an integral part of disease in each, and (whatever be its origin) to be 

 transmissible from man to animals, and from animals to animals." 



In 1901, Koch announced that he felt "justified in maintaining 

 that human tuberculosis differs from bovine, and cannot be trans- 

 mitted to cattle." He also expressed the opinion that bovine tuber- 

 culosis was scarcely, if at all, transmissible to man. Since this 

 announcement of Koch was made, the matter has been investigated 

 all over the world by experienced and competent men, and the 

 practical result of such inquiry is to leave the subject where it was 

 prior to Koch's announcement. 



The infection may not be directly due to the ingestion of the 

 meat itself that is to say, the muscular tissue may not contain the 

 bacilli but to the tuberculous matter from glands with which in 

 the cutting of the meat the butcher smears it. The Bacillus tuber- 

 culosis is killed in a few minutes at a temperature of 100 C., the 

 boiling-point, in five minutes at 80 C., and in four hours at 55 

 C., but the bacillus itself must be exposed to these temperatures. 

 Experiment has demonstrated that in ordinary cooking both by 

 boiling and roasting, the temperature in the interior of the joint 

 of meat, unless it is under six pounds in weight, seldom reaches 

 60 C. ; and that rolled meat, in the center of which is tuber- 

 culous matter, is not sterilized by any process of cooking if it 

 is over four pounds in weight. It follows from this that the 

 greatest care and supervision should be exercised by health author- 

 ities at the slaughter-house, so as to prevent the possibility of 

 infected meat finding its way into the market. To minimize still 

 further the danger, all meat which may contain infection should be 

 thoroughly cooked. 



The cysticerci which develop tapeworm in man are not destroyed 

 by the simple processes of salting and smoking, so that for their 

 destruction meat should be exposed to a temperature of at least 

 66 C., while for the destruction of the trichina the temperature 

 should be even higher, say 70 C., inasmuch as the trichina is 

 enclosed in a capsule which serves as an obstacle to the entrance 

 of heat. 



The common methods of cooking meat are, roasting, boiling, 

 broiling, and frying. These all have their proper places, but 

 should be employed with discrimination. In roasting, the meat 

 is exposed to a great heat, so as to coagulate the proteids on the 



