SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
939 
members, some of whom claimed that the bills were excessive, 
while others thought that any committee should get authoriza¬ 
tion before incurring expenses, it was moved and carried that 
the bills be accepted and paid from the treasury of the society. 
Treasurer' Walker reported $83.15 in the treasury. 
Dr. L. A. Merillat, of the Committee on New Literature, 
read an interesting paper on happenings and items of interest 
to the society, including the following subjects: Dr. Robert 
Koch’s statement regarding the immunity of man to bovine tu¬ 
berculosis, the tetanus outbreak in St. Louis, spinal cocainiza- 
tion, increased popularity of tuberculin tests on human patients, 
concluding his paper with a report of the proceedings of the last 
annual meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association 
at Atlantic City, giving resolutions adopted by that body. The 
report is as follows : 
u Koch's Statements .—The most important event of interest 
to the veterinary profession since our last session is the state¬ 
ment by Professor Robert Koch as to the immunity of the hu¬ 
man body to bovine tuberculosis. At the Tuberculosis Congress 
held in London in July, 1901, this eminent German expert re¬ 
ported the results of certain experiments to substantiate the 
above -proposition, and for the third time has astounded the 
civilized world with his work on tuberculosis : The first time 
when he discovered the etiology of tuberculosis, the second when 
tuberculin was brought prominently before the world, and the 
third, by making a statement contrary to the theory which had 
been universally accepted by all scientific medical men. While 
the statement is not entirely new to comparative pathologists, 
coming from one so high in the profession the laity were im¬ 
mediately brought face to face with a statement that seemed to 
surprise them. Koch has proven that cattle are not susceptible 
to human tuberculosis by artificial inoculation, and that the 
same cattle under similar conditions readily succumb to artifi¬ 
cial inoculations of bovine tuberculosis, and that swine fed with 
human sputum alive with tubercular bacilli do not contract the 
disease, but readily yield to the same experiments with animal 
bacilli. He theorized therefrom that the tubercular bacilli which 
these animals carry will not produce tuberculosis in man ; and 
the fact that Koch is supported by hosts of the most eminent 
pathologists of the world cannot be denied. From all the litera¬ 
ture that this committee is able to secure at the present date, 
however, it is evident that the question is still an open one that 
will require years of experimentation before it is definitely set- 
