TUBERCULOSIS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3747, 5 February 1907, Page 3

TUBERCULOSIS.

Infection From Cattle. London, Febuary 2. The second interim report of the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis, of which the late Sir Michael Foster was chairman, Las been issued. The report declares that, as the result of elaborate experiments, it has been shown that bovine animals and man can be reciprocally infected with tuberculosis.

Cows’ milk, containing bovine tubercle bacilli, is clearly, says the report, a cause of tuberculosis in man. A very large proportion of tuberculosis is contracted by ingestion, and is due to tubercle bacilli of bovine origin. More stringent measures are required, the report concludes, for the inspection and sale of milk.

The previous interim report was published in June Ist, 19 The Commission was appointed to inquire into the relation of human and bovine tuberculosis, in consequence ot the assertion of Professor Koch at the International Congress on Tuberculosis, held in London in i9oi, of the specific difference in these diseases. As the result of experiments on bovine animals, made by feeding or inoculating with tuberculosis material derived from human beings and containing living tubercle bacilli, the Commissioners found that on comparing the effects with those produced by infecting other animals of the same species with tubercular material derived from bovine sources, the disease set up in the one case was both in its broad general features and in its finer microscopical details identical with the other. They then concluded that to frame legislation in accordance with the view that the human and bovine tubercle bacilli are specifically different to each other would be most unwise.