276 EASTERN COUNTIES VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
neys, ovaries, heart, &c.—are all liable to be infiltrated with malignant 
tuberculous formations. As to the frequency of the disease in various 
tissues and organs, Adam found in 109 bovines the lungs and serous 
membranes chiefly involved ; in 117 the lungs solely affected, and in 28 
the serous membranes alone. In all the tuberculous cattle there was 
more or less affection of the bronchial glands, which were greatly en¬ 
larged from the presence of tubercle, and in 60 animals the liver was 
infected with these formations, while in some instances a number of 
tubercles were found in the tongue and the udder. They have been 
found by others in the mucous membrane of the roof of the vagina, and 
their presence there, as well as in the udder, has been considered useful 
from a diagnostic point of view. Tuberculosis, then, said Mr. Fleming, 
in continuation, is an infective disease, and appears to be almost peculiar 
among the lower animals to the bovine species; it is very rarely seen in 
the sheep and goat; it is as rare in the horse; in the pig it has been 
observed, and particularly as the termination of scrofula, with which it 
is identified; in carnivora it is very infrequent. With regard to the 
etiology of tuberculosis ; very many of the causes which have been sup¬ 
posed to operate in its production do not bear any relation to it, except 
as predisposing causes of those which facilitate the transmission of its 
virulent principles. Over-crowding, mal-hygiene, and poverty, are pre¬ 
disposing causes, while they hurry the course of the malady when it is 
developed. The same may be said of damp and cold, and it may be 
mentioned that while it prevails in warm and dry as well as cold and 
damp situations, it is rarely observed in the steppes of Russia and 
Siberia. Hyper-lactation has been blamed, chiefly, he thought, because 
milch cows are often affected; but it must be remembered there 
are two or three times more milch cows than males, so that the latter 
are probably as much affected as the former. It must not be forgotten, 
also, that cows are kept alive a longer time than bullocks or bulls, and 
are, besides, more exposed to infection by cohabitation. Food of 
different kinds or qualities will not produce the disease, neither will any 
other antecedent malady. Suppurative diseases, or accidents, are far 
more common in the horse than in the bovine species, and yet the exist¬ 
ence of tuberculosis is scarcely ever noted in the former. The malady 
is also said to complicate certain diseases, such as pleurisy, pneumonia, 
bronchitis, catarrh, &c., but they have no relationship to it, and when 
they are present are only evidence of the disease itself which has pro¬ 
duced them. The disease is looked upon as hereditary, and there are 
strong points which bear in favour of this view; it is certainly a trans¬ 
missible malady from mother to foetus. The question of heredity, except 
entailing predisposition to the disease, is not, however, easily solved, for 
its transmission by infection only too often complicates the inquiry. Mr. 
Fleming now came to the, perhaps, most important part of the paper— 
the infectiousness or contagiousness of tuberculosis. This unfortunate 
property of this serious disorder had only recently been demonstrated. 
From the facts before them there is reason to think that, like glanders, 
which it so much resembles in many points, the disease may, in ex¬ 
ceptional circumstances, be conveyed by the breath from diseased to 
healthy animals. To a certain extent the truth of this has been ex¬ 
perimentally demonstrated by Tappoinier, who produced the disease 
by causing small animals to inhale the dried sputa of phthisical 
people. On many occasions it has been noted that there was a strange 
persistency of tuberculosis in certain cattle sheds, which, so far as 
hygiene was concerned, left little to be desired ; while in other sheds, 
under far less favorable health conditions, but into which the disease 
