THE BOARD OF HEALTH AND TUBERCULOSIS. 
103 
[Written Specially for the American Veterinary Review.] 
THE BOARD OF HEALTH AND TUBERCULOSIS. 
By A. S. Heath, M. D., V. S., Prof, of Hygiene, Breeding, and Zootechny at 
THE American Veterinary College, New York. 
No. III. 
The bubonic plague has excited the deepest interest in the 
Boards of Health of New York, Brooklyn, and some other hy¬ 
gienic organizations. Dr. Wilson, bacteriologist of the Brook¬ 
lyn Health Board, has succeeded in making cultures of the 
specific microbe. Dr. Doty, Health Officer of the port of New 
York, and Dr. Fitzpatrick, bacteriologist, have begun work at 
Swinburn Island. It is to be hoped that these gentlemen will 
substitute the goat for the horse in making the serum. The 
quantity is not so important as the quality of the serum, and 
the economy in production will be an item worthy of consider¬ 
ation. 
In this, as in other infectious diseases, there are various ani¬ 
mals, in domestication, which have been agents in the spread of 
contagion. 
In Bombay rats are pests, not only from their great numbers 
and destructive habits, but from the danger they undoubtedly 
occasion in spreading the bubonic microbes from place to place 
from their persistent migratory habits. There can be no doubt 
of their active agency in the dissemination of infection, not 
only in the Bast, but all the world over. They rob us of our 
food, and by overrunning our storehouses, closets, granaries and 
pantries, they contaminate the food they do not devour. Cats 
and dogs, though they may themselves be immune to certain 
diseases, yet they are infected with tuberculosis, diphtheria, 
ophthalmia, and some other maladies that are the scourges of 
the human race. These household pets are more especially 
dangerous because of the sickening familiarity of soft-headed 
zoophiles^ who eat and sleep with them, and, still worse, who dis¬ 
gustingly caress and fondle them. These animals are liable to 
