BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
7 
the community, from the cradle to the grave. A disease that 
annually numbers among its victims 14 per cent, of the human 
family appeals with equal force and significance to the medical 
profession as it does to the veterinarian, within whose province 
and control the purity and freedom from disease of our dairy 
products more properly belong. 
The establishing of a correct diagnosis of this disease is as 
indispensable for those engaged in human medicine, as for those 
who are occupied with veterinary sanitary reform, and while 
you gentlemen are restricted to experimenting upon your own 
species, the veterinarians have come to your support with new 
methods and new means of analysis in a form much more defi¬ 
nite and precise than it were possible for you to employ. 
What then is tuberculosis ? It is the general name given to 
a class of diseases in animals, of which consumption in the hu¬ 
man family is a common type, and has been known for many 
centuries under many different names. Tuberculosis in all 
its forms is caused by a specific microbe, the action of which 
upon the tissues produces histological and vascular changes 
which are characteristic of chronic inflammation. In general 
the tubercle bacilli may be disseminated either by the lymph, 
or the blood channels or by both combined. In 1882, Robert 
Koch, of Berlin, announced to the profession his great discov¬ 
ery. He had found and demonstrated the true and essential 
cause of tuberculosis, the bacillus of tuberculosis. He had not 
only found the bacillus, but showed that it was present in all 
tubercular lesions. He had isolated and cultivated the bacillus 
from tubercular tissue ; and, finally, he had furnished the crucial 
test—had produced tuberculosis artificially in animals by inoc¬ 
ulation with pure culture. A few years later the scientific world 
became highly interested in the announcement of a further dis¬ 
covery by Koch of a “lymph or tuberculin” that bid fair to become 
a cure for consumption in the human family. It failed, because 
of the fact that while it produced a characteristic rise in tem¬ 
perature, it rapidly accelerated the disease it was intended to 
cure. The action of tuberculin upon the tubercle bacillus be- 
