THE WHITE PLAGUE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 46, 23 August 1911, Page 2

THE WHITE PLAGUE.

ROYAL COMMISSION REPORT.

DANGER IN MILK AND MEAT. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 14th July. The main findings of the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis may be summed up as follow :— In many cases human tuberculosis is identical with the bovine disease. Mammals and man can be reciprocally infected with the disease. Tuberculosis may be communicated to man by infected cow's milk or by tubercular meat— either beef or pork. The danger from bird tuberculosis is negligible. The bacillus of lupus is of the bovine type, but different in certain respects from that "usually found in cattle. The commission, therefore, urges that regulations regarding milk and meat must not be relaxed, but, oh the contrary, enforced throughout the Kingdom, to give us better security against infection. We are, it says, inadequately guarded against the danger in milk from infected cows. This report, just issued, concludes an enquiry that has lasted exactly ten years. It was on Ist August, 1901, that the late King appointed Sir Michael Foster, Professor Sims Woodhead (Cambridge), Professor Sidney Martin (University College, London), Principal M'Fadyean (Veterinary College), and Professor Boyce (Liverpool) to decide : Whether tubetculosia (consumption) in animals and man is one and the same thing? Whether animals infect man ( and man infects animals? la what ways animals infect toa-n most ? Sif Michael Foster died in 1907, and Dr. W. H. Power (Local Government Board) took his place. As to the first, the report says :— "We have always found that guinea pigs chimpanzees, and monkeys are all highly susceptible to the effects of either the human or the bovine (cattle) tubercle bacillus, and that the disease produced in these animals by both types is anatomically identical. We have investigated many instances of fatal tuberculosis in the human subject, in which the disease was undoubtedly caused by a bacillus of the bovine type and by nothing else. Man must be added to the list of • animals notably susceptible to bovine tubercle bacilli. There can be ho question that human tuberculosis is, in part, identical with bovine tuberculosis." .With respect to the second question, the Oammissionere state that mammals and man cati infect one another : ''We have conclusively shown that many cases of fatal tuberculosis in the human subject have been produwd by the bacillue known to_ cause the disease in cattle." Consumption of the lungs is sometimes caused by a bovine 'tubercle bacillus. Before coming to the chief danger in diseased cows, milk, and beef, the -report. , hopes that none of the animals that multiply' the human tubercle are in common .use for man's food, but "particular glands of the pig's body which are likely to enter into certain prepared foods do on occasion yield tubercle bacilli of the human typo," THE MILK PERIL. As the IPesult of investigating cases ot 128 persons suffering from the disease, the Commiseiqhers Ba-y the disease germ, in adult consumptives, especially lung cases, ,was nearly always the human getm, and not that from cattle. ' But with 'children, the case is very different. •Of young children who died of wasting of the' intefitlhe the germ from the cow was alone the cause in nearly half the cases. Further, a large proportion of cafies of diseased neck glands in both children and adults was da© to the same canst,. "In the interests therefore of infants and children* the members of the population whom we have proved to be especially endangered, and for the reasoilable safeguarding of the public health generally, we would urge that existing regulations and supervision of milk pro dttction and meat preparation be not relaxed ; that on the contrary, Government should cause to be enforced throughout the Kingdom food regulations planned to afford better security againet the infection of human, beings through I the medium of articles of diet derived from tuberculous animals. "More particularly we would urge action in this sense in order to avert or minimise the present danger arising from the ( consumption of infected milk. Bovin« tubercle bacilli are apt to be abundantly present in milk as cold to the public when there is tuberculous disease of the udd«r of the cow from whicti it was obtained. This fact is, we believe, generally recognised though not I adequately guarded against. But these bacilli may also be pr-eeent in the milk of tuberculous cows presenting no evidence whatever of disease of the udder. "We are convinced that measutes for securing the prevention of ingestion of living bovine tubercle bacilli with milk would gireatly reduce the number of caees of .abdominal and cervical gland tuberculosis in children, and that such measures should include the exclusion from the food supply of the milk of the recognieably tuberculosis cow, irrespective of th© site of the dieeaee, whether in the udder or in the internal organs."