336 
E. F. BRUSH. 
The cow is the only known animal that has transmitted 
tuberculosis to her offspring in inheritance. I am fully aware 
that this statement will meet with considerable opposition, 
as many of our best workers are of opinion that bacillary 
phthisis is hereditary in the human race. But I have con¬ 
cluded that this is merely a theory, because, after diligent 
search, I have failed to find a well-authenticated case on record 
of a human foetus at term showing evidence of tuberculosis. 
We have, however, on record in the “Fortschritte der Medizin, 
No. 7, Vol. iii., 1885, a case given by Johne of congenital 
tuberculosis in a foetal calf of eight months, and in Crook- 
shank’s “Manual of Bacteriology” (plate I s ), is a stained illus¬ 
tration of the bacilli from this undoubted case. Just in the 
line ot this hereditary tendency let me narrate an experiment 
of my own. Last summer I took the entire lungs and all the 
largely involved lymphatic glands from a cow dead from acute 
miliary tuberculosis, and, confining five laying hens and a cock, 
fed them exclusively on this matter till it was all consumed. 
I found after eight days one of the hens, which I killed, had 
tubercular affection of the layrngeal glands ; I took twenty-six 
of the last eggs laid by these hens and put them under two 
sitting hens in another part of the farm. Twenty-three of 
these eggs developed foetal chicks, but not a single one lived 
to come out of the shell. Two or three days after the period 
of incubation had expired, the hens themselves broke the eggs, 
but every chick was dead. I took some of the eggs that I 
had not used for setting to the Carnegie laboratory, and Dr. 
Grauer searched diligently for the bacillus tuberculosis, but 
failed to hnd any. He found, however, the presence of the 
germ in the lymphatic glands of the hen I had killed ; he now 
has some of the chicks, but I have received no report from 
him as to their condition. Of the four remaining hens and 
cock, some one stole the latter when he was apparently quite 
ill, three of the hens died extremely emaciated, notwithstand¬ 
ing that they had abundance of good food after they had 
finished the tuberculized matter, and the remaining hen was 
killed by the burning of the building in which she was con¬ 
fined. This experiment needs confirmation by further experi- 
