124 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



and young, have been infected with tubercle bacilli 

 through the milk of cows suffering from the disease is 

 one of the best-attested facts in modern pathology, 

 but the extent to which children are the victims of this 

 peril is only now being recognized. Jacobi, a con- 

 servative authority, has long held that feeding chil- 

 dren upon milk from tuberculous cows is undoubtedly 

 one of the causes of infection to which close attention 

 should be given. Professor von Behring° goes very 

 much further, and says that "the milk fed to infants 

 is the cAie/" cause of infection," * 



It may be that the conservatives are right in re- 

 garding this opinion of the famous Marburg teacher 

 as extreme. It is not an unusual thing for a great 

 teacher who finds the bow bent too much one way 

 to bend it too much the other in his zeal to set it 

 straight, — to adopt the phrase in which Malthus made 

 his notable confession long ago. But, while it may 

 be true that Professor von Behring makes this mis- 

 take when he declares that the milk fed to infants is 

 the "chief" cause of tuberculosis, most of the world's 

 leading pathologists agree that it is one of the sources 

 of infection, and an important one; and that, as such, 

 it ought to be given careful attention. The British 

 Royal Commission appointed to inquire into "The 



* Dr. E. F. Brush, one of our best authorities, regards aU 

 tuberculosis as being of bovine origin. See Human and Bovine 

 Tuberculosis, by E. F. Brush, M.D., p. 12. 



