73 2 Tuberculosis 



In children, however, the bovine type of tubercle bacillus causes 

 a marked percentage of the cases of cervical adenitis, -leading to 

 operation, temporary disablement, discomfort, and disfigurement. 

 It causes a large percentage of the rarer types of alimentary tuber- 

 culosis requiring operative interference or causing the dea,th of the 

 child directly or as a contributing cause in other diseases. 



In young children it becomes a menace to life and causes from 

 6j^ to 10 per cent, of the total fatalities from this disease. 



Prophylajds. — The prevention of tuberculosis in cattle is a matter 

 of vast sanitary importance. Not only have we to consider the 

 danger of infection from milk containing tubercle baciUi, but also 

 the inferior quality and diminished usefulness of milk and flesh 

 coming from animals that are diseased. The extermination of 

 bovine tuberculosis, therefore, becomes imperative, and the utmost 

 efforts should be made to bring it about. Several separate meas- 

 ures must be considered: 



1. Improvement in the methods of diagnosis, by which the 

 recognition of the disease is made possible before its ravages are 

 great. This is rapidly coming about with increasing information 

 regarding the use and abuse of tuberculin, etc. 



2. Means by which infected animals shall be destroyed. Here 

 the municipal and state governments furnish inadequate funds to 

 make possible the destruction of diseased cattle without adequate 

 compensation — an injustice to the unfortunate owner. 



3. Means of preventing the infection of healthy animals. In 

 many places this is being achieved with brilliant success by sepa- 

 ration of the herd, healthy and newly born animals constitut- 

 ing one part, suspicious animals the other. By these means valuable 

 breeding animals can be kept for a time, at least, in usefulness. A 

 second and less successful means of preventing infection is by means 

 of prophylactic vaccination of the healthy animals with dead 

 cultures, modified living cultures, or by bacteriotbxins made by 

 comminuting them. 



Experiments of this kind have been conducted by McFadyen,* 

 on a large scale by von Behring,t by Pearson and Gilliland,J Cal- 

 mette and Guerin,| and by Theobald Smith, || all of whom think 

 distinct resisting power against infection by the tubercle bacillus 

 can thus be brought about. 



Tuberculin Test for Tuberculosis of Cattle.— The febrile reac- 

 tion caused by the injection of tubercuUn into tuberculous animals 

 is an important adjunct to our means of diagnosticating the disease. 



* "Jour. Comp. Path, and Therap.," June, 1901. 



t "Beitrage zur experimentellen Therapie," 1902, Hft. 5. 



f'Jour. of Comp. Med. Vet. Archiv.," Nov., 1902, "Univ. of Perina. Med. 

 Bull.," April, 1905. 



§"Ann. de I'Inst. Pasteur.," Oct., 1905, May, 1906, and July, 1907; and 

 "International Congress on Tuberculosis," Washington, 1908. 



II "Journal of Medical Research," June, 1908, xviii, No. 3, p. 451- 



