BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
13 
Dr. Williams (M. D.), of Massachusetts, says, “ I have seen 
many cases of tubercular disease from milk, mostly in hand-fed 
babies of perfectly healthy parentage, developing tabes mesen- 
terica, phthisis and tubercular meningitis.” 
Dr. Hallock (M. D.), of South Carolina, writes of a case 
where a strong, vigorous child, without a trace of disease in its 
ancestry, lost its mother at birth, and was suckled by a woman 
well advanced in pulmonary consumption in opposition to his 
remonstrances. The child was ailing ever after, and died of 
tuberculosis. ^ I pronounce this a case of tuberculosis being 
transmitted through the milk of the woman who nursed the 
child. 
/ 
Dr. Strang (M. D.) reports in his practice, “ A well devel¬ 
oped five-year-old boy from sound parents, whose ancestors on 
both sides were free from hereditary taint, succumbed, after a 
few weeks’ illness, with acute miliary tuberculosis of the lungs 
and enormously enlarged mesenteric glands. A short time be¬ 
fore the family cow had been killed and found to be the victim 
of advanced pulmonary tuberculosis.” 
Dr. Demme (M. D.) reports the case of four infants in the 
Child’s Hospital at Berne, the issue of sound parents, without 
any tuberculous ancestry, that died of intestinal mesenteric 
tuberculosis, as the result of feeding upon the unsterilized milk 
of tuberculous cows. 
While inspecting a herd of cattle a few years ago in Eastern 
Maine, I had just given an unguarded diagnosis of tuberculosis 
in a fine-looking Jersey cow, when a woman’s sharp voice rang 
out behind me, “For God’s sake. Doctor, don’t tell me that, my 
baby has been fed on that cow’s milk,” and although the story 
was told the mother at the time that the cow proved sound, a 
broken-hearted mother now knows that I told her the truth. 
A Scotch family, all of sturdy health, had a herd of cows 
which developed tuberculosis. Two daughters, being young, 
were brought up on the milk. Their two older brothers, being 
more fond of whiskey than milk, are still living, healthy and 
hearty, while the two sisters are lying in their graves, victims of 
