INTERCOMMUNICABILITY UB 



the matter in Europe and America, and Del^piue,* Hamilton.t Orth, 

 and Behring J are amongst those who have obtained positive results. 

 Hamilton was able again to establish the truth of Martin's statement, 

 that not infrequently tuberculosis occurred in animals fed on 

 tubercular sputum without affecting the mesenteric and other 

 intestinal glands upon which Koch relied as indication of positive 

 results. 



The fundamental feature of Behring's theory based upon his 

 experiments, the results of which are entirely opposed to those of 

 Koch, is that tuberculosis in animals and in human beings 

 represents different varieties of the same disease, and that it is 

 transferable, especially by the agency of tuberculous mUk. He 

 distinguishes in this respect between adults and infants, and main- 

 tains that while the former, except under special conditions of the 

 digestive organs, may safely partake of unsterilised milk, infants 

 are particularly liable to infection from this source. Experiments 

 made on newborn foals, calves, guinea-pigs, and other animals show 

 that the mucous membrane of the intestines at that stage of their 

 development is like " a filter with very large pores," and that the 

 bacilli of infection pass through it- into the blood precisely as if the 

 animals had been inoculated with the poison. In subsequent stages 

 of their development these animals are provided by nature with a 

 mucous membrane which tends to exclude the danger of infection. 

 Behring is convinced that the same holds true of infants and adults, 

 and that a large portion of mankind is infected in infancy with the 

 germs of tuberculosis derived from cows' milk. In support of his 

 assertion he adduces statistics both of anatomical and of pathological 

 investigation. 



This latter evidence tending to show the transmission of tuber- 

 culosis to man by means of milk and meat, is of the same character 

 as that upon which the Eoyal Commission relied when it 

 reported : — " We cannot refuse to apply, and we do not hesitate to 

 apply, to the case of the human subject, the evidence (of trans- 

 mission of the disease) thus obtained from a variety of animals 

 that differ widely in their habits of feeding — herbivora, carnivora, 

 omnivora. As regards man, we must believe that any person 

 who takes tuberculous matter into the body as food incurs some 

 risk of acquiring tuberculous disease." § And again, " We have 

 obtaiaed ample evidence that food derived from tuberculous animals 

 can produce tuberculosis in healthy animals. In the absence of 



* Brit. Med. Jour., 1901, ii., p. 1224. 



t Trans, of Highland and Agricult. Soc. of Scotland, 1903, and Public Health, 

 1903, p. 689. 



X Deut. Med. Woch., 1903. 



§ Report of Royal Commission, 1895, part i., p. 10, par. 22. 



