milk from Tuberculous Cows. 
125 
MILK FROM TUBERCULOUS COWS. 
IIOW FAR MAY A COW BE TUBERCULOUS BEFORE HER MILK 
BECOMES DANGEROUS AS AN ARTICLE OF FOOD?* 
By Harold C. Ernst, A.M., M.D., of Boston. 
The change of opinion in regard to the infectious nature 
of tuberculosis has been very marked in the last few years, 
not among the scientists, but among the people at large. Of 
course the medical world has, as a rule, accepted the conclu¬ 
sions to be drawn from Villemin’s work of twenty-five years 
ago, and the discovery of the specific cause of the disease bv 
Koch has only added strength to the theories advanced in 
certain quarters before that time. 
The change of opinion spoken of is, after all, hardly a 
change, but, morb properly, an acceptance of the knowledge 
gained in regard to the disease by the more recent and exact 
methods of research, and a much wider diffusion of that 
knowledge. More and more is it the rule that the knowledge 
of the transmissibility of tuberculosis by means of infected 
material is recognized among those whom it concerns the 
most, and nothing but good can come from the diffusion of 
that knowledge. 
It is hardly too much to say that proper methods of man 
agement of tuberculosis, both in human beings and in animals, 
involve more important interests—pecuniary as well as vital 
—than any other subject that engages the attention of medi¬ 
cal men. It is well known that one-seventh of the human 
race, approximately, perish from this disease, and when we 
acknowledge to ourselves, as a fair review of the evidence at 
hand must force us to do, that most, if not all, of this loss is 
preventable, our duty is plain before us. That is, never to 
cease speaking of it, never to give up trying to reconcile the 
money interests of man with his own welfare, and to do all in 
our power, by the collection of clinical and experimental 
evidence, to make the case complete. 
The work showing the etiological relationship of the bacil- 
* From the Hatch Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 8. 
