CONGRESS ON TUBERCULOSIS. 
449 
that these experiments should be repeated elsewhere, in order 
that all doubt as to the correctness of my assertion may be re¬ 
moved. 
I wish only to add that, owing to the great importance of this 
matter, the German Government has appointed a commission to 
make further inquiries on the subject. 
But, now, how is it with the susceptibility of man to bovine 
tuberculosis? This question is far more important to us than 
that of the susceptibility of cattle to human tuberculosis, highly 
important as that is too. It is impossible to give this question 
a direct answer, because, of course, the experimental investiga¬ 
tion of it with human beings is out of the question. Indirectly, 
however, we can try to approach it. It is well known that the 
milk and butter consumed in great cities very often contain 
large quantities of the bacilli of bovine tuberculosis in a living 
condition, as the numerous infection experiments with such 
dairy products on animals have proved. Most of the inhabitants 
of such cities daily consume such living and perfectly virulent 
bacilli of bovine tuberculosis, and unintentionally carry out the 
experiment which we are not at liberty to make. If the bacilli 
of bovine tuberculosis were able to infect human beings, many 
cases of tuberculosis caused by the consumption of alimenta 
containing tubercle-bacilli could not but occur among the in¬ 
habitants of great cities, especially the children. And most 
medical men believe that this is actually the case. 
In reality, however, it is not so. That a case of tuberculosis 
has been caused by alimenta can be assumed with certainty only 
when the intestine suffers first— i. e., when a so-called primary 
tuberculosis of the intestine is found. But such cases are ex¬ 
tremely rare. Among many cases of tuberculosis examined 
after death, I myself remember having seen primary tuber¬ 
culosis of the intestine only twice. Among the great post¬ 
mortem material of the Charite Hospital in Berlin ten cases of 
primary tuberculosis of the intestine occurred in five years. 
Among 933 cases of tuberculosis in children at the Emperor and 
Empress Frederick’s Hospital for Children, Baginsky never 
found tuberculosis of the intestine without simultaneous disease 
of the lungs and the bronchial glands. Among 3104 post mor- 
tems of tubercular children, Biedert observed only sixteen cases 
of primary tuberculosis of the intestine. I could cite from the 
literature of this subject many more statistics of the same kind, 
all indubitably showing that primary tuberculosis of the intes¬ 
tine, especially among children, is a comparatively rare disease, 
