Some notes on the housing question in Finsbury.

  • Finsbury (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
1901
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Some notes on the housing question in Finsbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    3 2. That in specially prepared and suitable media artificial cultures of the tubercle- bacillus from bovine and human sources have produced indistinguishable effects when they have been employed to infect a variety of animals, which would seem to indicate that the conditions produced are only variations of one and the same disease. 3. That tuberculin° produces a specific reaction in tuberculous cattle, whether human or bovine tubercle-bacilli have been employed in its preparation.—(MacFadyean.) [ It will be seen that these three reasons have relation to the theory of the identity of bovine and human tuberculosis.] 4. That because the tubercle-bacilli derived from bovine source's is, either by inoculation or ingestion as food, admittedly very virulent and dangerous for such diverse species of animals as the rabbit, horse, dog, pig, sheep, and cow, it is highly probable that it is also dangerous to man.f For it is well known that the majority of disease-producing bacteria are harmful to only one or two species of animals, but those disease-producing bacteria that are common to all the domesticated animals are also able to produce disease in man. 5. That the statistics and percentages set forth by Dr. Koch with regard to primary intestinal tuberculosis cannot be accepted as representing universal experience. For example, in two separate reports from two children's hospitals in London and Edinburgh dealing with 547 cases of death from tuberculosis in children, it appears that 29.1 per cent, and 28.1 per cent, of the cases respectively primary infection appeared to have taken place through the intestine. But quite apart from statistics, the whole question of such primary intestinal tuberculosis (which Dr. Koch held as the only acceptable evidence of tuberculous infection through milk and meat) is fraught with many difficulties and fallacies, and is at present sub judice. It has been shown by Professor Sidney Martin and others that primary intestinal tuberculosis may not be, by any means, an invariable criterion of tubercular infection by means of food (vide infra). 6. That there are on record a number of cases in which there appeared to be substantial evidence to show that persons had contracted tuberculosis, directly or indirectly, by means of milk or meat. It is obvious that such cases, unless occurring with extraordinary frequency, are only of relative value. Moreover, there are other channels of infection to eliminate, and this it is often impossible to do. 7. That the results obtained from the inoculation of human tubercle into animals by Dr. Koch cannot be accepted as in complete accord with universal experience. In England alone somewhat similar experiments have been performed having positive.• results. Several years ago Professor Crookshank carried out such an experiment. He obtained sputum containing numerous tubercle-bacilli from an advanced case of human consumption. This was injected into the peritoneal cavity of a healthy calf. The animal became ill and died 42 days after inoculation from jjycemia (blood-poisoning). On post-mortem examination it was found that there were abundant signs of generalized tuberculosis.‡ This calf was not tested with tuberculin previously to the experiment. Professor Sidney Martin carried out the following experiments for the Royal Com mission on Tuberculosis. £ ° Tuberculin is a product of the artificial cultivation of the tubercle-bacillus (human or bovine) which is now used as an injection test into cattle. If such cattle are suffering from tuberculosis they react (giving high temperature, swelling at the point of inoculation, etc.) ; if not so suffering, they do not react. Hence tuberculin is used as a diagnostic agent. †See the researches of Villemin (1865), Klebs, Chauveau (1868), Gerlach, Giinther and Harms (1870 1873), Bollinger, and others. Further, Frledberger and Frohner state in their Veterinary Pathology that Wesener compiled reports up to 1884 of 369 feeding experiments, the positive and negative results of which were about equal in number. From this compilation it appears that (a) 71 animals, among which guinea pigs and swine proved most susceptible, were experimented upon with human tubercular matter; (6) 180 experiments were made with tubercular matter from cattle ; (c) the flesh of tuberculous cattle was given on 32 occasions as food, with the result that pigs were found to be more susceptible than other animals, and that dogs were unaffected ; and (d) the milk of tuberculous cows was given as food in 86 cases. From these experiments it was found that in the scale of comparative racial susceptibility the herbivora (cattle, sheep, goats) proved highest, then swine, and after these guinea-pigs and rabbits. Carnivorous animals were little affected. Bovine tubercular matter was found to possess the greatest power of infection, then came the sputum of tuberculous men, then the milk of tuberculous animals, and lastly, tuberculous flesh. ‡Bacteriology and Infective Diseases.—Edgar M. Crookshank, 1896, pp. 389-391. § Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Effect of Food derived from Tuber culous Animals on Human Health, 1895. Part iii., Appendix, pp. 18 and 19.