IN THE CAUSE OF SCIENCE

Evening Star, Issue 11609, 20 June 1902, Page 6

IN THE CAUSE OF SCIENCE

DR GARNAULT’S EXPERIMENT.

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.

LONDON, June 19. (Received June 20, at 9.15 a.in.)

Doctor Garnault, of Paris, has inoculated himself with consumptive matter from a cow, in order to disprove Koch's theory that bovine tuberculosis is non-contagious to humans.

[At the Tuberculosis Conference at London last year Dr Koch propounded the theory that cattle and certain other animals were not susceptible to human tuberculosis. On the still more important question whether man was susceptible to bovine tuberculosis, he said that the answer was more difficult, because experiment was out of the question. But from the rarity of primary tuberculosis of the intestine, Koch argued the insusceptibility of man to infection with bovine tuberculosis. To quote his own words: “Though the important question whether man is susceptible to bovine tuberculosis at all is not yet absolutely decided, and will not admit of absolute dec's’oti to-day or to-morrow, one is, nevertheless, already at liberty to say that it such a susceptibility really exist the infection of human beings is but a very rare occurrence. I should estimate the extent of the infection by the milk and flesh of tubercular cattle, and the butter made of their milk, as hardly greater than that of hereditary transmission, and I therefore do not deem it advisable to take any measures against it” He went on to argue that the main source of infection was the sputum of consumptives. In the discussion that followed Professor Koch’s address Lord Lister sounded a note of warning, which was echoed by nearly all subsequent speakers, against hasty acceptance of the German savant’s views, and against the relaxation of the existing regulations respecting tubercle-infected meat and milk. At the instance of the Conference the British Government kiter undertook to set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the question of the identity of human and bovine tuberculosis.]