VETERINARIANS AS SANITARIANS. 
699 
that reaches our table, none possesses a more genial habitation 
for nearly all forms of bacteria as milk. Not a year passes but 
that we have living proof of the communicability of disease 
from various sources through the medium of milk. Diseases 
that are not wholly infantile but attack man at all ages. Not only 
has it been proven that certain diseases incident to the bovine 
family have been carried through milk to man, but that diseases 
wholly allied to man have been transmitted through milk. 
Thus this medium is open to a double source of infectiousness ; 
of the two sources of infection we find that in man lies the 
greater evil of the two. Aside from bovine phthisis, there are 
but few diseases of frequency in that family considered danger¬ 
ous and liable to transmission through the products of the dairy, 
but in man we have a number of infectious diseases, which can 
be transmitted through this medium. Whether tuberculosis in 
man has its essential source in the bovine family or not, there 
are, however, certain conditions of the disease in the animal 
which seem even on the surface to be inimical to health, and 
when considered upon the ground of its possible relation and 
potency towards creating the disease in man, there is at once of 
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itself a wall of defense very difficult to destroy. The Massachu¬ 
setts Society for Promoting Agriculture, after making 121 
microscopical examinations of milk taken from 36 cows, on 19 
different occasions, found that the tubercle bacilli actually ex¬ 
isted in the milk of 33 per cent, of the animals examined ; and 
that the animals were actually affected with tuberculosis ; that 
the udder was free from the disease, which was proven in all 
cases by careful post-mortem examinations. The animals selec¬ 
ted for this test were known to have the disease. The object of 
the test being to prove whether or not the bacilli actually exis¬ 
ted in milk taken from animals which had the disease in parts 
other than the udder. On the other hand, as we have intima¬ 
ted that by man, milk is environed with conditions which lay it 
open to serious and fatal consequences ere it reaches the con¬ 
sumer’s table. The wonder is, it is not more so. A daily food 
so well calculated by constituents to be a suitable abiding place 
