TUBERCULOSIS. 
395 
The two series of experiments converge then towards the 
same demonstration—the nocuity of the flesh of tuberculous 
animals, arid they indicate, further,.the fact, especially serious 
from our point of view, that contagion by the digestive pas¬ 
sages operates with alarming frequency. 
Calculation gives us an idea of the number of bacilli con¬ 
tained in the mass of muscle of a tuberculous ox. 
Let us start from the experiments mentioned above, and 
suppose that the bacilli are uniformly distributed in the mus¬ 
cles of a tuberculous animal. Let us admit also that the one 
hundred and thirty-seven animals inoculated may have had 
each i centimetre cube of juice. In the 137 centimetre cubes 
there were at least thirteen bacilli, or for 1 centimetre cube 
t&= 0.094. We have assured ourselves that 100 grammes of 
flesh give under the press 30 centimetre cubes of juice. Con¬ 
sequently 100 grammes of flesh will include 0.094x30=2 bacilli 
.820. A kilogramme will contain 28 bacilli. If an ox of me¬ 
dium size furnishes 280 kilogrammes of flesh net, its carcase 
will contain 28 x 280=7840 bacilli. This number is not insig¬ 
nificant. 
M. Nocard has endeavored to discover how long the 
bacilli wandering in the muscular tissue may conserve their 
virulence. Having inoculated six rabbits, two and one-half 
months old, with 1 centimetre cube of a culture of tubercle 
bacilli (non-sporulating), he killed the first at the end of two 
days, and the others at intervals of twenty-four hours. From 
each rabbit he removed the mass of the longissimus dorsi 
muscle, divided it finely, aed submitted it to the action of the 
press in order to express the juice. A centimetre cube of 
this juice was inoculated into the auricular vein of a parallel 
series o± test rabbits. The rabbits inoculated with the juice 
of the flesh of the first three rabbits died tuberculous; the 
three others were never affected. 
M. Nocard concludes that the flesh of a tuberculous ani¬ 
mal can offer some danger during the four or five days after 
death, but that after that interval, that is to say before the 
sixth day, the bacilli are destroyed in the muscular tissue. 
This research, interesting from the scientific point of view, 
