558 
JOHN FORBES. 
TUBERCULOSIS, 
Address delivered by Dr. John Forbes, of St. Joseph, Mo., at the regular meeting 
of the Missouri Valley Veterinary Association, October 2, 1895. 
Much has been said and written recently in regard to the 
subject of tuberculosis, and to many it may seem a re-hash to 
consider it again. When, however, we know that a great 
proportion of the deaths in the human family are due to tu¬ 
berculosis, that the disease is common to man and the lower 
animals, and that its existence in the animals that maintain 
the food supply of man is a menace to public health, and 
when we consider that the veterinarian must be the guardian 
of the public health in this respect, I think you will agree 
with me that it is a subject that cannot be too often considered. 
I regret very much that other duties have prevented me giv¬ 
ing the attention to the subject that it demands, but what 
follows I trust will evoke a hearty discussion of the subject. 
In laying it before you for discussion and your consideration, 
I wish only to emphasize a few of the most important feat¬ 
ures of the subject. Koch’s discovery effected a complete 
reformation in the clinical views of tuberculosis. All sorts 
of theories prevailed previous to that. Clinical medicine re¬ 
constructed itself to comply with the views imposed by the 
discovery. 
Of the various points in the subject none seem to be more 
assailed than heredity. There has been no direct proof of 
the inheritance of the disease, but it is a clinical fact, never¬ 
theless, and one of almost daily experience, that the disease 
reaps its harvest among the offspring of tuberculous parents. 
When the disease appears at an early age the hereditarians 
believe that there has been an hereditary infection instead of 
an early direct infection. 
There are many ways in which the young can be infected. 
Close contact with a diseased mother or other diseased ani¬ 
mals, and the contamination of the food with sputum con¬ 
taining the bacilli. Milk, however, in the human subject, is 
the most frequent source of infection, and it is surprising 
how little the general public are enlightened upon this sub- 
