MEAT INSPECTION. 
495 
ous chaiacter of glanders-affected meat for human food is, we 
believe, universally conceded. 
The contagious character of tuberculosis among the lower 
animals has been well attested in every possible respect. 
First, by clinical observation. Second, by experimental trans¬ 
mission. Third, by the production of immunity from subse¬ 
quent exposure. Its identity in the various lower animals and 
in man rests upon as thoroughly tested a basis as is recognized 
in medicine-and the inter-transmissibility between man and 
animals has been equally well established. Space forbids that 
we should consider the question of the fitness of the meat of 
mildly affected tuberculous animals for human food beyond 
the general conclusions as to the entire class. 
The third affection in this class, actinomycosis, constitutes 
at present the most stubbornly contested ground in the whole 
question of meat inspection from a sanitary standpoint, and it 
pas been found impossible for your committee to agree. 
Consequently your chairman has felt compelled to present his 
personal views in the body of the report, and has asked Prof. 
Schwartzkopff to give as completely as possible the contrary 
The fundamental point upon which rests the classification 
perein proposed, is the question of the contagiousness of ac- 
inomycosis. What constitutes a contagious disease ? Based 
lpon the derivation of the word and the knowledge of the 
-lass of diseases to which it has been applied, it has been 
leld to signify a malady.transmissible by contact or approach. 
Later developments in medical knowledge have gradually 
sd us to apply this word in a more restricted sense, excluding 
aternal and external animal parasites, and meaning more par- 
icularly those highly contagious affections due to the inva- 
ion of vegetable micro-organisms. 
We would then say that in the present light of medical 
cience, when speaking of contagious diseases in a restricted 
ense, that we apply the term to those affections due to the in- 
asion by a micro-organism, of a more highly organized body, 
herein the invading organism finds all the conditions and 
nvironments essential to its growth and reproduction, and in 
