BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
17 
The virulent outbreak of tuberculosis upon our own State 
College farm, together with those of Massachusetts, New Hamp¬ 
shire, and Vermont; also the Insane Asylum herds of eastern and 
northern Illinois, and the Insane Asylum herd at Willard, New 
York, should impress upon us all the vital importance of investi¬ 
gating this source of food supply, for the inmates of all our 
charitable and public institutions. The herds supplying the 
Maine General, and Central Maine Hospitals, the Augusta In¬ 
sane Asylum, all industrial and juvenile schools in this State, 
should be tested at least once a year for public safety, and we 
should all agitate and educate together upon this subject until it 
is accomplished. In this connection by way of negative evidence 
it is interesting to compare the geographic distribution of cattle 
and tuberculosis. Dr. B. F. Brush, of Mount Vernon, N. Y., 
has given years of study and investigation to this matter, and in 
his papers, scattered through the New York Medical Journal^ 
makes the statement that tuberculosis does not exist among 
people which do not employ milch cattle. Dr. Rich says : 
“ The inference to be drawn is not that human tuberculosis 
comes mainly from cattle, for man gets his infection mostly from 
his fellow-man, but that possibly the primary source of infection, 
and more or less of its maintenance and extension are due to 
cattle. Whatever be the inference, there is little question that 
human consumption is relatively less prevalent in countries 
where there are few or no cattle, such as Iceland, Newfoundland, 
Algiers, Peru and Islands of the Pacific, Norway, Sweden, Lap- 
land and Greenland, where reindeer, goats or mares furnish the 
milk. In some of the western South American countries, cattle 
are used only for beef, since so many cases have been traced to 
the use of milk, that the entire population with scarcely a single 
exception leave it alone. The flesh itself only contains tubercles 
in very rare cases. The bacilli are non-motile, and consequently 
cannot penetrate into the tissues without assistance, and muscu¬ 
lar tissue is a substance so unfavorable for the bacilli that they 
cannot multiply in it. In the beginning they are isolated and 
in the interior of cells, but are constantly found in places where 
