CORRESPONDENCE. 
559 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
SOME REMARKS IN RELATION TO PROF. KOCH’S RECENT COM¬ 
MUNICATION TO THE LONDON CONGRESS. 
New York City, Sept. 19, 190 r. 
Editors American Veterinary Review: 
Dear Sirs :—I have recently read the contribution of the 
famous Dr. Robert Koch in your columns and delivered before 
the British Congress on Tuberculosis for the Prevention of 
Consumption, and pending the report of the Commission, 
which I understand has been appointed to continue the 
investigation of the question, permit me to offer a few sug¬ 
gestions which may, perhaps, serve as some food for thought 
for those who are interested in the transmission of the disease. 
In the first place, the distinguished investigator asserts that 
tuberculosis is sometimes hereditary ; if this be true, then in the 
words of that classical writer, Eraenkel, “ the germ theory of 
the disease is undermined and at once falls to the ground.” In 
my sixth biennial report to the Michigan State Rive Stock 
Sanitary Commission the following will be found : u To revert 
somewhat briefly tg the word hereditary, let me say that it is de¬ 
rived from a Katin noun heres , meaning an heir, the genitive case 
being used and suffix added to make up the word ; it then evolves 
when somewhat liberally translated into the phrase ; pertaining 
to the heir of.’ Gould in his famous dictionary of Biology and Al¬ 
lied Sciences, says it means 1 acquired by inheritance ’ and speaks 
of it as the transmission of physical or mental qualities or ten¬ 
dencies from parent to offspring, while the same author in quot¬ 
ing Darwin’s Theory of Heredity supports the suggestion that 
each of the cells of the body gives off germinal particles ; these 
when grouped constitute the generative cell, which in its turn 
is endowed with an inherent power to reproduce itself as well 
as the peculiarities of the original organism. But the Koch 
bacillus is an accidental invader of the cell of the animal, and 
is consequently a foreign body, just as much as a fine splinter 
of wood would be under certain circumstances, and has nothing- 
whatever to do with the original constitution of that cell ; there¬ 
fore tuberculosis cannot be an hereditary disease—the disease, 
however, sometimes seems to be congenital , which according to 
the Etymological Dictionary by the Rev. W. W. Skeat, profes¬ 
sor of Anglo-Saxon, in the University of Cambridge, England, 
is derived from a Latin word, congenitus , meaning born with A 
During the period that I was identified with the Biological 
