132 THE COMMON SENSE OE THE MILK QUESTION 



disease from animals. But, obviously, it is not 

 practicable to try experiments upon human beings 

 in the same way as upon dumb animals. There are, 

 however, many cases on record where human be- 

 ings have been accidentally inoculated with bovine 

 tuberculosis, with fatal result. Ravenel testifies ^* 

 to having personally observed four such cases, two 

 of them occurring among assistants in his labora- 

 tory. He also quotes a case recorded by Troje, 

 which, it appears, was reported to Koch, who agreed 

 that there was no flaw in the evidence. It relates 

 that a young butcher, of good health, with no heredi- 

 tary taint so far as could be ascertained, wounded 

 his forearm while working on a tuberculous cow's 

 carcass and contracted tuberculosis in consequence.^' 

 That human beings can acquire tuberculosis by in- 

 oculation from bovine sources seems to be a com- 

 pletely established fact. 



Finally, let us consider the possibilities of infec- 

 tion by ingestion, by eating meat or drinking milk 

 from tuberculous animals. We know very positively 

 that healthy cows fed upon food which contains tuber- 

 culous matter of human origin become infected with 

 the disease;^' and it is reasonable to suppose, in the 

 absence of conclusive proof to the contrary, that 

 human beings can be similarly infected by the inges- 

 tion of bovine tuberculous matter. Such would be 

 the only warrantable inference, even if we had not 



