September 13, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



177 



reason of the dangers which attend the use of raw ntiilk, the pro- 

 tection of young children, who are so susceptible to tuberculosis, 

 should earnestly engage the attention of mothers and nurses. 



By reason of the dangers which attend the use of butchers' meat, 

 which may come from animals that were tuberculous, though hav- 

 ing every appearance of health, the public should insist that the in- 

 spection of all meats, as required by the law, should be rigorously 

 enforced. The only sure way of avoiding the dangers arising from 

 meat derived from tuberculous animals, is to subject such meat to 

 a thorough cooking, which shall include the entire substance in 

 depth, as well as the surface. Meats completely roasted, boiled, or 

 broiled are alone safe. 



As the germ of tuberculosis may be transmitted from the tuber- 

 culous to the healthy man, by sputa, pus, dried mucosities, cloth- 

 ing, or other objects impregnated with fine tuberculous particles, it 

 is necessary for the public, in order to be protected against the 

 contagion : — 



(i) To know that, the sputa of phthisical patients being the most 

 formidable agents of the transmission of tuberculosis, there is 

 danger in allowing these expectorated matters to be deposited on 

 the ground, on carpets, on drapery, screens, towels, handkerchiefs, 

 clothing, and bed linen. 



(2) To be pursuaded that the use of spittoons is obligatory on all 

 phthisical patients everywhere. Spittoons should always be 

 emptied into the fire and cleansed with boiling water. They should 

 never be emptied on dung heaps, on garden soil (where they may 

 tubercularize fowl), nor into privies. 



(3) To refrain from sleeping in the bed of a tuberculous patient ; 

 to remain as little as possible in a room occupied by such person. 

 This caution is especially applicable to young children. 



(4) To sequestrate from all places occupied by phthisical patients, 

 individuals considered as predisposed to tuberculosis, children 

 torn of tuberculous parents, or that have lately had measles, small- 

 pox, pneumonia, etc., and all diabetic patients. 



(5) To avoid using objects which a phthisical patient may have 

 contaminated — garments, bed-clothing, toilet-implements, play- 

 things, etc., — till after previous disinfection, in the hot-air stove, 

 by boiling water, sulphur fumigations, etc. 



(6) To insist that the rooms of hotels, furnished houses, cottages 

 occupied by phthisical patients at watering-places or winter sta- 

 tions, shall be equipped and tapestried in such a way that disinfec- 

 tion may be easily and completely effected after the departure of 

 each patient. It would be better that these apartments should 

 have no hangings or tapestry, and that they should be whitewashed . 

 The floors should be bare, either oiled or painted. Hotels and fur- 

 inished cottages in which such hygienic precautions and measures 

 •of disinfection are taken should alone be patronized by the public. 



At the meeting of the Academy of Medicine, Aug. 6, 1889, this 

 •report was discussed. Dujardin-Beaumetz was in favor of sup- 

 pressing entirely the sections pertaining to raw meat and raw milk. 

 There is nothing that proves the possibility, in man at least, of the 

 transmission of tuberculosis by butchers' meat. As for milk, if it 

 ■be true that it may on certain occasions contain bacilli, we must 

 not forget that in order that milk may be thus contaminated the 

 cow must not only be tuberculous, but must also have tuberculous 

 mammitis. 



Germain See did not believe in the communication of tuberculosis 

 by the air of respiration. The bacillus cannot live in the air. It 

 ■never develops and multiplies outside of the organism of man or 

 the animal. In the open air it dies rapidly, as, in order to live, it 

 needs a temperature of 30° C. The matter of atmospheric con- 

 tagion is a bugaboo, which has already wrought trouble in families 

 by causing the poor consumptive to be treated like a leper, — shun- 

 ned and abandoned by his nearest relatives. It has been demon- 

 strated experimentally that air taken three or four yards from the 

 bed of a consumptive patient does not contain a single bacillus ; 

 but if the air exhaled by a phthisical person is inoffensive, the sputa 

 are not so, and too much pains cannot be taken to disinfect and 

 destroy all expectorated matters. 



With regard to the prohibition of meat and blood, it is a fact, 

 said Professor See, that the blood is never virulent, and animal 

 flesh, according to recent experiments (Nocard, of Alfort), far from 

 ■containing bacilli, destroys them by the muscular juice which the 



flesh contains. Hence, there is no necessity, in order to destroy 

 the bacillus, to boil meat to a pap, to forbid roast meat, or under- 

 done meat, or even raw meat. If we were to hearken to the com- 

 mission, he thought we should be deprived of some of our best 

 alimentary products, and nothing would be served on our tables 

 that was not spoiled to the taste by over-cooking, as well as ren- 

 dered more indigestible thereby. 



With regard to the care that should be taken of those that were 

 hereditarily predisposed to tuberculosis, he thought that excessive 

 precaution was an evil ; the best prophylactic is gymnastic exer- 

 cises and hydrotherapy. . 



Professor See did not think persons especially liable to tuberculo- 

 sis, who had been subject to colds, bronchitis, or who had had 

 pneumonia, measles, whooping-cough, or small pox. On the con- 

 trary, he had found such persons remarkably exempt from tuber- 

 cular diseases. 



Tuberculous Meat. 



Simultaneously with the report of the permanent commission of 

 the French congress on tuberculosis, says the journal before 

 quoted, we have before us a voluminous report from Glasgow, 

 giving the proceedings at trial, under petitions of the Glasgow local 

 authority, against two butchers who exposed for sale, for human 

 food, the carcasses of two tuberculous animals. Among those 

 giving testimony at the trial we find the well-known names of Dr. 

 J. B. Russell, medical officer of health for Glasgow since 1872; 

 Joseph Coats, pathologist to the Royal Infirmary of Glasgow, and 

 Professor J. McCall, Principal of the Glasgow Veterinary College. 

 In addition, there were the medical officers for Edinburgh and 

 Greenock, and for Leeds, Birmingham, and Hull ; three other vet- 

 erinary pathologists besides McCall ; and Mr. Mayland, as a bac- 

 teriologist and pathologist in addition to Dr. Coats. There were, 

 in all, fifteen witnesses for the prosecution and nineteen for the 

 defence. The conclusions of the French congress, as well as of 

 the Brussels veterinary congress of 1883, and of a departmental 

 committee of the privy council, were frequently referred to in the 

 course of the testimony. 



The cases were test cases, brought to enable the medical officers 

 of Glasgow to apply the same stringent standards as were already 

 enforced in Edinburgh and Greenock. 



The evidence showed that, in regard to one of the animals, 

 " there were tubercles in the substance of the lungs themselves, in 

 both the costal and pulmonary pleura, in the pleura connected with 

 the diaphragm, and further in the cavity of the body inclosing the 

 respiratory organs ; " there was tubercular deposit in the lymphat- 

 ics, and tubercular bacilli were found in the inguinal gland. In 

 regard to the other, it was shown that there was active tuberculo- 

 sis in the lungs and pleura, and bacilli were found in the prepecto- 

 ral gland. The question before the court was, whether the meat 

 of these animals after the carcasses had been " stripped " was 

 " unfit for the food of man." 



The prosecution laid down five propositions, and asked for con- 

 viction upon their acceptance by the court, (i) The disease called 

 tuberculosis, whatever form it may assume, whether phthisis, or 

 scrofula, or struma, is a widespread disease amongst animals and 

 man, and to it may be attributed a large percentage of the deaths 

 in the community, and a very large proportion of the ill health. 

 (2) That the disease known as tuberculosis now, is identical in 

 man and in the lower animals. (3) The disease is communicable 

 from the lower animals to man, by, amongst other means, inhala- 

 tion and ingestion. (4.) The disease tuberculosis is due to the ac- 

 tive presence of a specific organism known as the bacillus tubercu- 

 losis. (5) Given the signs of tuberculosis upon certain specific 

 organs of an animal, you may and ought reasonably to infer that 

 the virus of the disease is in other portions of the carcass of the 

 animal, where there may be no outward and visible signs to indi- 

 cate its presence. 



The defence held that no one has ever yet heard of a case of tu- 

 berculosis contracted from the ingestion of tuberculous meat ; but 

 in the case of milk, the disease has been traced, and if in the latter, 

 why not in the former ; that cooking was a sufficient safeguard, 

 and if people preferred to eat partially cooked meat, they should be 

 allowed to take whatever infinitesimal risks might exist ; that, even 



