REPORT OF THE TUBERCULOSIS COMMITTEE. 
459 
Tuberculosis spreads more rapidly in the winter, when 
the cattle are housed, than during the pasturing season. Some 
personal observations indicate that the construction of the 
stalls has some influence on the dissemination of the disease, 
since it appears to spread more rapidly in stables so arranged 
that the cows can bring their heads in contact with their 
neighbors, and touch noses, than in stables fitted with solid 
partitions between the cows’ heads, Or with box-stalls. 
That tuberculosis of cattle is rarely inherited is the testi¬ 
mony of all practicing veterinarians, and is clearly shown by 
the report of the examination of nearly one million calves in 
the Munich slaughter-house from 1878 to 1882, of which but 
five were tuberculous, while the percentage of tuberculosis in 
the old cattle slaughtered ranged from two to eleven 
per cent. But that heredity plays an important part in pre¬ 
disposition and immunity cannot be doubted. 
In one herd tested with tuberculin each member oi 
a family of five cows reacted and all were found upon post¬ 
mortem examination to be affected. Some cows can mingle 
with consumptive associates for years and remain free from 
tuberculosis, and their progeny are usually endowed with the 
same natural defense. 
In another herd, in which forty per cent, of the cows had 
tuberculosis, one old cow and her three daughters proved to 
be free from the disease. It has not been shown that the in- 
% 
fluence of the sire is as powerful as that of the dam, in con¬ 
ferring predisposition to and immunity from tuberculosis. 
Leonard Pearson. 
While it is now generally admitted and proved by experi¬ 
ments that the milk of tuberculous cattle is exceedingly 
dangerous to man, the question of infection from the meat sup¬ 
ply is in dispute. Some experimenters have produced posi¬ 
tive results by feeding of the expressed muscle juice of tuber¬ 
culous animals, but it is feared that the experimenters may 
not have used proper antiseptic precautions in obtaining the 
material. On the other hand, anyone who is in the habit of 
visiting our slaughter-houses will observe that the butchers 
