Bovine Tuberculosis. 



Tlierfe is no one subject in all human and -veterinary medi- 

 cine that is so important to mankind as the disease of Tuber- 

 culosis, and no one subject in veterinary medicine that has 

 caused so much discussion and difference of opinion as Bovine 

 Tuberculosis. Various names have been given to this disease, 

 as Tuberculosis, Phthisis Pulmonalis, Consumption, the Wast- 

 ing Disease, the White Plague in the human, while in the bovine 

 it is spoken of as Grape Disease, Pearl Disease, Wasters, Piners, 

 Snorters, according as the lungs, bowels, or glands of the throat 

 were attacked. Many cases of so-called Wens or Clivers and 

 swellings in the udder are undoubtedly of a tuberculosis nature. 



Hardly any warm blooded animals are exempt from it. It 

 is caused by a germ, the Bacillus Tuberculosis, discovered by 

 Dr. Robert Koch (Berlin, (Germany,) in 1883. The germ having 

 once entered the system, and all things being equal, that is, 

 there is a certain spot in the body that is "sick," below "par," 

 which may form the seat of the disease, and from which spot 

 the germs may be manufactured, so to speak, and go forth to 

 attack and locate in other parts of the body. 



This germ can be and is transmitted from human beings to 

 animals and vice versa. 



These germs are not visible to the naked eye, and can only 

 be seen with the aid of a microscope. They appear in the hu- 

 man as little rods, very fine, and often bent or curved, and have 

 the average length of nearly one-half the diameter of a human 

 red blood corpuscle, or 1-7000 of an inch in diameter. When 

 stained they often present a beaded appearance, which some 

 have attributed to the presence of spores. The spores of germs 

 are the immature forms, or the parent cells, from which germs 

 are developed. 



With the basic aniline dyes the germ stains slowly, except 

 at a temperature of 98° to 100° F., but retains the dye after 



