TUBERCULIN TESTS OF THE COLLEGE HERD. 
I 7 
leaving this part of the discussion let me state that there 
has been a large amount of scientific investigation which 
goes) to prove that human tuberculosis can be transmitted 
to cattle by direct inoculation, and there is little doubt 
of its transmissibility from animal to animal or from one 
kind of animal to another. 
If Dr. Koch s announcement is true, it is a most import¬ 
ant discovery. However, so much evidence hasaccumulated to 
prove that men contract bovine tuberculosis that scientists 
are slow to accept this new theory of Koch’s and will not do 
so without abundant proof. 
The following quotations as made by the “Literary 
Digest” are of interest: 
From the Philadelphia Press. 
“ The chief evidence of the transmission of tuberculosis from cows to 
human beings has rested on the cases of children. The strongest proof was 
summed in a report lately made to the British Medical Council that ‘ The 
mortality from tuberculosis in early childhood is not decreasing as at other 
ages, and the opinion that this is due to infection by milk appears well 
founded.” 
“ Meanwhile, laboratory evidence accumulated that the human and 
bovine bacillus were not identical in shape, tests or increase. Cattle are 
relatively unsusceptible to human tuberculosis. It is extremely probable 
that Dr. Koch has carried this to full proof and developed the difference to 
be one of species. If, however, tuberculosis cannot furnish bacilli which 
gives human beings the disease, the cattle bacilli render cattle diseased. 
Infection once begun infects the entire herd. Unless people chose to eat 
diseased meat, and drink milk with bovine tubercle containing, as was 
found in Boston, 810 million germs to the tumbler, tuberculous cattle must 
continue to be sternly destroyed.” 
The following from the “Medical News” of New York: 
“The belief that bovine tubercle bacillus is incapable of inducing 
tuberculosis in man is, of course, by no means new. For years there have 
been advocates of this side of the question. Asa matter of fact, there is 
abundance of clinical evidence which indicates this capacity. Thus, 
Tscheving, of Copenhagen, in 1888, reported a case in point. The sufferer 
was a veterinary surgeon who wounded his finger while making an autopsy 
on a tuberculous cow. Local tuberculosis in the wounded part developed in 
a short time. Lefevre collected other equally striking examples which 
would be very difficult of explanation if our present view is incorrect.” 
The introduction to this report by Dr. Glover gives 
the above cases and presents abundant reason for sus¬ 
pecting tuberculous cattle. It will take nothing short of 
absolute proof to convince that bovine tuberculosis is not 
