BACILLUS OF TUBERCULOSIS. 285 
Hypothesis of Transmissibility of Tubercle Bacilli to 
the Foetus. Baumgarten and others have advanced a 
hypothesis to account for certain obscure cases of tuber- 
culosis—namely, that of the transmissibility of tubercle 
bacilli from the mother to the unborn babe. There 
seems to be some evidence of the possible transmission 
of tubercular poison from the mother to the foetus in 
animals. The first authentic case recorded is that 
reported by Johne of an eight-months-old calf fcetus; 
other cases have since been reported. With regard to 
tuberculosis in the human foetus the evidence is not so 
clear, though several cases have been reported of tuber- 
culosis in very young babies only a few weeks old, and 
two cases are recorded of placental tuberculosis. The 
fact that statistics show a greater frequency of tuber- 
cular diseases in children during the first than in the 
following years of life does not strengthen the hypo- 
thesis of infection in ulero; for nursing babies would 
naturally be more exposed to infection through the 
mother’s milk and through personal contact than others, 
and, beside, the more tender the life of the infant the more 
susceptible it would be ordinarily to indirect infection 
from a tuberculous mother. Experimental proof, how- 
ever, of the actual transmission of tubercle bacilli from 
the mother to the foetus in animals has recently been 
furnished. De Rienzi found that in five out of eighteen 
cases in guinea-pigs such transmission of bacilli did 
take place, and Girtner confirmed the same in numer- 
ous experiments on rabbits, mice, and canaries. The 
infection resulted not only from animals affected with 
general miliary tuberculosis, but also from local dis- 
ease of the lungs; but in the majority of cases very 
few bacilli were transmitted to the fcetus—so few, 
