BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS 
493 
dren being fed the milk from a cow suffering from this disease. 
Here I will remark that Jersey cows are more subject to 
tubercle than other and commoner breeds of cattle, and how 
well we all know that in the suburbs of large cities and in 
small cities we hnd one cow kept to supply milk for the chil¬ 
dren of a family and this one cow in nine cases out of ten is a 
Jersey cow. Man} 7 medical practitioners have often told that 
they meet with true cases of tuberculosis in children where 
the most careful research failed to show that there had been 
any tuberculosis in that family for generations back, conse_ 
quently there could be no hereditary taint. Could not many 
of these cases be caused by the milk of tubercular cattle ? 
My experience is that in the majority of cattle suffering from 
this disease we find tubercles in the udder in various stages of 
degeneration and sometimes leading directly into the milk 
ducts. I call to memory one case of a cow that was used to 
feed calves, as she had been coughing some time and the owner, 
being a very scrupulous man about healthy food, would not 
use the milk for human consumption. Two heifers, five and 
six months old, both calves from healthy cows, who had been fed 
from this cow sickened and died with tubercular dysentery; 
and after I found out their history 1 made a careful examina¬ 
tion of the cow and pronounced her a case of tuberculosis. I 
watched this cow closely and about six months after, as she 
was nearly dead, the owner consented to kill her and allow me 
to make a post mortem, which revealed a beautiful case of 
tuberculosis with a tubercle in the udder in a state of cheesy 
degeneration. I felt positive then that those calves had con¬ 
tracted the disease from the milk of that cow. For the same 
reason I contend that the milk could produce the same disease 
in children, and whenever J have reason to believe a cow is 
suffering from this disease I advise the owner, in the strongest 
terms possible, not to use the milk from said animal in his 
family. True, such advice will often bring adverse criticism 
down on us through ignorance, but such is often the case 
where one is doing what he considers his duty, and as we 
should be sanitarians in the strictest sense of the word, we 
should'never miss an opportunity where contagious diseases 
