326 
U. B. M’CURDY. 
centage of them possess a greater or lesser number of the bacilli 
in their system. Many have constitutions and sufficient vitality 
with which they can resist the disease. But the weakened, 
hereditarily-afflicted ones contract the disease, disseminate the 
germs promiscuously during their short lives and finally suc¬ 
cumb to the inevitable. 
Relation to Public Health .—It is generally accepted that 
tuberculosis is directly communicable from man to beast and vice 
versa. The micro-organism is identical. Ollivier and Boutet 
record an outbreak of tuberculosis in a boarding school. Cows 
were kept for the use of the establishment. It was found that 
one of the cows supplying the milk during a certain period was 
tuberculous, and during that time six of the children contracted 
tuberculosis. Strang gives another case. A boy aged five and 
born of healthy parents died from advanced tuberculosis of the 
mesenteric ganglia and miliary tuberculosis of the lungs^ It 
was ascertained that he had been in the habit of drinking warm, 
uncooked milk from a cow suffering from tuberculosis, as was 
proven by post-mortem. Dr. Gosse, of Geneva, records another. 
His daughter was, at the age of sixteen, a strong, healthy girl, 
and there was no trace of tuberculosis in the family. About ten 
months before her death she began to manifest signs of a mysteri¬ 
ous illness,-which caused gradual wasting, and ultimately the 
patient died at the age of seventeen. At the autopsy it was 
found that the poor girl had suffered from intestinal and mesen¬ 
teric tuberculosis. It was afterward remembered that she was 
in the habit, when spending the Sundays on a small estate, 
where cows were kept, of drinking warm milk almost direct 
from the cows. In consequence the cows were subjected to an 
examination and four out of the five were found tuberculous, 
and two of these had tuberculous udders. Another strong 
proof of the transmission of the disease through the con¬ 
sumption of meats: Dr. Treon describes the animals fur¬ 
nished to the Northwest Indians as being poor, emaciated 
and diseased. The Indians eat the entire carcass, including 
liver, tallow, and entrails, fresh and without cooking. The 
