226 
JAMES LAW 
on the milk of a cow suffering from acute tubercolsis without any 
appreciable evil result. It may be freely concluded that a large 
number of individuals while in the enjoyment of robust health 
will withstand the influence of tubercle taken in the stomach, but 
it must be otherwise with the weak and young, those with poor 
feeding and worse air, those living in damp sunless localities, and 
subjected to much exposure. In a case that recently came under 
my notice in Brooklyn, N. Y., a family cow was found in an ad¬ 
vanced state of tuberculosis, and the owner (William Martin) and 
his wife were rapidly sinking under the same malady. In another 
case reported to me by Dr. Corlies, of New Jersey, a family cow 
supposed to be suffering from lung plague was found to be aftiicted 
with tuberculosis instead, and the owner’s wife (a consumptive), 
who had been making free use of the milk warm from the cow, 
was persuaded to give it up and underwent an immediate and de¬ 
cided improvement. It is for infants and adults who are some¬ 
what infirm and out of health, or whose surroundings are not of 
the most salubrious kind, that the danger is greatest, but this 
embraces such an extended class that the moral interests involved 
are almost illimitable. The destruction of infancy and wasting 
of manhood from this cause is unquestionably far greater than 
has been heretofore realized; and on the moral ground alone this 
subject demands the watchful attention of a board of health. But 
even as a financial question, and as estimated in the losses in live 
stock alone, the subject attains to wide proportions. The infec¬ 
tion of tubercle once introduced will often extend from the single 
diseased animal to a whole herd with startling rapidity. Last 
winter I visited a herd of sixty Devon cattle that were reported 
as perfectly sound six years ago. At that time a bull was 
bought which proved tuberculous, and the disease had steadily 
increased until at the time of my visit there was not a sound ani¬ 
mal on the premises. Into a second herd nine poor calves were 
introduced in the fall of 1878. They were afflicted with a cough 
which soon attacked the five other calves on the place, the eight 
cows, and two cows of a neighbor that pastured with them. At 
the time of my visit in the spring of 1879 all showed distinct 
symptoms of tuberculosis. 
