468 
CONGRESS ON TUBERCULOSIS. 
species, and it is the very reverse of a hardship to the owner of 
such animah to insist on their being slaughtered. 
It would probably be regarded as a serious omission if I did 
not refer to one other method of counteracting whatever danger 
at present attaches to impure milk as a cause of human tuber¬ 
culosis. No matter how highly charged milk may be with 
tubercle bacilli, it can be deprived of all danger from that 
source by raising it to the temperature known to be fatal to 
these germs. Less than the boiling temperature (212° F.) suffi¬ 
ces for this purpose ; but, unfortunately, the lowest temperature 
that can be relied upon imparts to the milk a flavor that many 
people find distasteful. That objection does not hold good in 
the case of infants and young children, and the custom of boil¬ 
ing or steaming the nursery milk for a few minutes cannot be 
made too general. But while abstinence from uncooked milk 
is a sure way of avoiding infection with bacilli present in that 
article of food, it cannot for a moment be admitted that this ab¬ 
solves public health authorities from all concern with the sub¬ 
ject. Arsenical beer may be made harmless by adding the 
proper antidote before drinking it, but the most courageous 
brewer would not plead this as an excuse for selling the impure 
article. 
In conclusion I would venture to express the earnest hope 
that the Congress will not endorse the view that it is inadvisaole 
to take any measures to prevent the transmission of tubercu¬ 
losis from the lower animals to human beings. To justify the 
introduction of measures to that end it is not necessary to con¬ 
tend that this is a common method of infection, or that the 
danger arising from milk can for a moment be compared with 
that present in human sputum. The inhalation of tubercle 
bacilli expelled from the bodies of human patients is doubtless 
the great cause of human tuberculosis, and every practicable 
means of preventing infection in that way ought to be em¬ 
ployed ; but, at the same time, we ought not to concede to the 
milkmen the right to sell us tubercle bacilli, even if we were 
assured that—like Dr. Koch’s experimental pigs—we had 
nothing to fear beyond the development of “ little nodules here 
and there in the "lymphatic glands” of our necks and “a few 
grey tubercles ” in our lungs. 
The French are recommending the bromhydrate of areco- 
line subcutaneously injected for azoturia. See Prof. Liautard’s 
“ European Chronicles ” in this number. 
