812 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 
The second series of cases, demonstrating infection of pigs by inges- 
tion of tubercular cow’s flesh, occurred in Australia. Unfortunately it is 
a common practice at abattoirs and boiling-down establishments to feed 
pigs on refuse offal and the flesh of diseased animals, most often raw. 
Even some inspectors of stock are in the habit of allowing the diseased 
flesh, organs, &c., of animals they have condemned to be fed to abattoir 
pigs, destined shortly to become hum an food. A disgusting practice surely I 
It was at one of these places that the cases occurred. A varying 
number of pigs were kept ; but at the time of my connection with the 
affair there were twelve pigs left out of a total of twenty-three, 
eleven having died during the previous three weeks. The carcasses of 
five most recently dead were exhumed and examined. They all 
showed tuberculous ab cesses and swellings in the parotid and 
pharyngeal regions, the tonsils in two cases containing caseated masses. 
In two of the pigs the mesenteric lymphatic glands were enlarged, 
and in one of these both the prepectoral and bronchial lymphatics 
were enlarged and congested, but in no case was there any pulmonary 
lesion. The twelve pigs still living were slaughtered at my 
suggestion, and seven of them were found to be tuberculous. One 
had a pharyngeal abscess, the whole seven had intestinal tuberculosis, 
and one had grey masses in the lung tissue. So that in all twelve pigs 
out of the seventeen I examined were tubercular, and it is reasonable 
to deduce that, out of the total of twenty-three, eighteen (the whole 
eleven that died and seven found to be diseased when killed) were 
tubercular. 1 had some difficulty, for reasons that will be obvious to 
any who have bad to do with the inspection and condemning of cattle, 
in ascertaining the history of these pigs. So far as I could reliably 
discover, however, about two months previously three cows in the 
last stages of tuberculosis bad been killed at intervals of four or five 
days, and the pigs had been fed on their flesh and offal. The internal 
organs had been thrown in for them to rummage amongst and eat 
raw, and the flesh had been cooked before being given to them. Previous 
to this, and also during the time intervening between this aud the 
fatalities, the pigs were regularly fed on the raw offal of the abattoirs 
indiscriminately, whether normal or diseased. 
Eegarding the communicability of tuberculosis from animals to 
man, all eminent medical and veterinary pathologists now unreservedly 
agree that infection of man from animals does occur. Koch (Berlin), 
CJbauveau and Nocard (Paris), Bang (Copenhagen), Burdon-Sanderson, 
Sims-Woodhead, McEadyean, and Meming (London), Arloiug (Lyons), 
Perroncito (Turin), Ostertag (Stuttgart), Bollinger (Munich), and 
others have at different times during the last five years announced 
their conviction to this effect. The labours of the Paris Congress 
on Tuberculosis, held in July and August, 1891, settled definitely 
that the bacilli causing human and animal tuberculosis are identical; 
that each will produce similar tubercular lesions in any susceptible 
animal ; and that any difference in the lesion produced (in man and 
cows respectively, for example) depends upon the modifying influence 
or histological variation of the host, aud not upon any morphological 
or functional difference in the bacilli. 
The main source of human infection from animals is the milk of 
tuberculous cows. The flesh of tuberculous animals may be a less 
frequent source of infection. But at present doubt exists as to what 
