TUBERCLE BACILLI IN MILK, BUTTER, AND 
MARGARINE* 
By H. E. ANNETT, M.D. Vict., D.P.H., Professor Koch's Institute, Berlin, 
AND THE Thompson Yates Laboratories, Liverpool 
In the midst of the great movement at present occupying the attention and interest botli 
of the profession and the public, namely, the provision of sanatoria and homes for the phthisical, 
there is some danger of the fact that tuberculosis is a preventable disease being considerably 
neglected. Tlie liuman digestive tract plays an important, but probably the most easily prevent- 
able, role in infection by tubercle bacilli ; a role, however, insignificant in comparison to tliat of 
the respiratory tract in tuberculosis of adults, but very important and considerable in the case 
of young children and infants. In view of the most recent experimental work on the question of 
the presence of tubercle bacilli in milk, butter, and margarine, an apology for again introducing 
tliis subject, on wliich much has already been written, is deemed unnecessary. 
Tubercle Bacilli in Milk 
Numerous bacteriological examinations oi milk during the last ten years liave proved the 
presence of tubercle bacilli in a greater or less percentage ; for example, in Berlin milk, by 
OBERMULLER,t to the extent 6i per cent., and by Petri,;|: also in Berlin milk, only of 14 per 
cent. — using the method of inoculation of animals as the test. Also Rabinowitsch and 
Kempner§ found that 28 per cent, of 25 samples of Berlin milk contained tubercle bacilli. 
In the medical officer of health's report || to the Liverpool Health Committee on the 
question of tubercle bacilli in the milk-supply of Liverpool, 2.8 per cent, of the 144 samples 
collected from sources within the city were proved to be infective by experiments of Professor 
Sims Woodhead, Professor Boyce, and Professor Delepine ; while 29.1 per cent, of 24 samples 
taken on arrival from parts of Cheshire, Shropshire, &c., at the railway stations were found to* be 
tuberculous. Similarly Professor DelepineH reports of the milk-supplies of Liverpool, Manchester, 
and other parts, 5.55 per cent, of 54 samples collected from town dairies ; and 17.6 per cent, of 
125 samples of milk from country farms collected at the railway stations proved to be tuberculous. 
Again, milk collected from 16 Cambridgeshire dairies, a sample from each, was reported by 
Kanthack and Sladen** to liave produced tuberculosis in Guinea-pigs, on inoculation, to the 
extent of 56.3 per cent, of tlie milk (9 samples). 
* Reprinted from the 'Lancet,' Jan. 20th, 1900. || 'Report and Brit. Med. Jour.,' 1897, vol. ii, p. 162. 
•f ' Hygienisclie Rundschau,' 1895, No. 19. ^'Brit. Med. Jour.,' 1898, vol. ii, p. 917. 
X 'Arbeiten aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte,' 1898, vol. xiv. ** The 'Lancet,' Jan. 14th, 1899, p. 74. 
§ Rabinowitsch and Kempner : ' Zeitschrift fiir Hygiene,' 1899, p. 137. 
