DR. J. W. POUCHER. 253 



of consumption, most of the previously existing theories 

 and axioms concerning it had to be given up, and none 

 of these were clung to with as much tenacity as that of 

 hereditary. There is perhaps no fact of experience 

 which was regarded so strongly as the heredity of tuber- 

 culosis. Every day we see tuberculosis reap its harvest 

 among the progeny of a tuberculous father or a phthisi- 

 cal mother. We see the children of such parents grow 

 up scrofulous in childhood and perish tuberculous in 

 youth, yet late and elaboiTti:e investigation has not found 

 one single proof that a child or animal was ever born 

 tuberculous. On the other hand, there are very many 

 evident methods for the infection of young children. 

 The intimate contact of the nursling with a sick mother 

 or nurse, the kisses of a tuberculous father, the infec- 

 tion of the child's food with tubercle bacilli, the bacil- 

 lary infection of wounds. 



All these are means of infection against which the 

 helpless infant is so much less resistant the weaker its 

 organism. Infection of milk containing germs is prob- 

 ably the most direct method next to direct infection by 

 diseased relatives, on account of the frequency of tuber- 

 culosis or "pearl disease" among cattle. It is possible 

 that the fear of bacilli in milk is very much exaggerated, 

 but the frequency of tuberculosis of the mesenteric or 

 abdominal glands in children always points toward in- 

 fection by food; and since the infectiousness of milk of 

 cows suffering from the pearl sickness has been proven, 

 we can look upon it only as a great danger. If so large 

 a proportion of our milk is tuberculous, you may ask 

 why does it not infect everybody, for everybody must at 

 some time introduce these germs into their systems. All 

 are not at all times susceptible; there is an unknown 

 pathological something which we call predisposition, 

 when certain conditions are present which favor certain 

 developments, and it is in regard to this predisposition 



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