132 
HAROLD C. ERNST. 
in the udder, he found but two whose milk showed virulent 
qualities upon inoculation in rabbits. He concludes that since 
the cows experimented with were in advanced stages of the 
disease and yet showed such slight virulent properties in their 
milk, the danger from cows in less advanced stages is much 
less. And this conclusion he thinks is borne out by experi¬ 
ments with milk drawn from eight women affected with 
tuberculosis; specimens were used from all for inoculation 
and none were found to be virulent. He draws the conclusion, 
therefore, that it is not necessary to consider all milk danger¬ 
ous coming from tuberculous cows, but that it should always 
be suspected , because no one can say when the udder will be 
diseased, and because, without this, the milk from tuberculous 
cows contains the virus in rare cases. 
I shall endeavor to show that it is not at all rare for such 
milk to contain the virus. 
Galtier also {loc. cit., p. 81) has given the result of certain ex¬ 
periments with milk coming from tuberculous cows, but he says 
that “ certain experimenters claim to have established the viru¬ 
lence of milk coming from animals whose udders appeared to 
be normal and free from any lesions ; the greater number, and 
I am one of them, have merely encountered a virulence in 
milk after the udder had become tuberculous. However, as 
a beginning tuberculosis of the udder is an extremely difficult 
thing to recognize, especially during the life of the animal, 
the milk should be considered dangerous which comes from 
any animal affected, or suspected of being affected, with tuber¬ 
culosis.” 
I shall endeavor to show that this view of the case is justi¬ 
fied by something more than probabilities. 
In the Dcutsch. Arch, fur klin. Med., Bd. xliv. S. 500, 
Hirschberger reports the results of an experimental research 
upon the infectiousness of the milk of tuberculous cows, in 
which—following out Bollinger’s work—he attempts to settle, 
1st, whether the cases are rare in which tuberculous cows 
give an infectious milk; and 2d, whether the milk is infectious 
only in cows with general tuberculosis, or whether it is also 
infectious when the disease is localized. He made the trials 
