TUBERCULOSIS AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1262, 7 May 1896, Page 4

TUBERCULOSIS AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

IVY MYLES CAMPPKLL, {Written for the New Zealand Mail) The inspector is abroad examining, condemning, an 1 ordering the distinction of diseased cattle .The breeder, feeder, farmer and butcher growls and says there is no disease.

In Wanganui the other day the inspector waited upon a butcher to see a good conditioned beast killed, and then pointed out the disease to the butcher, who exclaimed, " Geod Level, is that tuberculosis] Why any amount of thorn havo those lumps on their lights." The present ago will scarcely realise the debt of gratitude we owe to the scientist who has taught us so much about microscopic disease germs, and the terrible source of infection wo have in the household milk as ordinarily supplied to the people in our cities.

Milk has been known to leave its deadly trail of typhoid fever, or fctill more deadly diphtheria, behind, all along the route of delivery from a certain dairy. Then again, cows are peculiarly liable to tuberculosis, or consumption as it is commonly called, and milk is one of the most certain channels of infection.

Dr Pankowskie says:-" If all the babies that have been offered to this modern Moloch of ignorance were to rise up against us in judgment we might well shudder at the contemplation of so much horror and suffering inflicted at our own hands upon our own flesh and blood." Y r et the fact remains that the mortality amongst infants from consumption of the bowels, which is simply appalling, may in nine cases out of ten be traced to the milk used for their food.

Several cases interesting to the general public, as well as the medical profession, are given in the current number of the British Journal oj Dermatology. For example, Dr Wild has recorded a case, that of a young girl, in which tuberculosis first showed itself in the hand, and from the band had spread all over the body, finally killing tho patient. The disease had been inoculated in the hand by the girl washing of some pocket-handkerchiefs used by a consumptive patient. Dr Wild advocates the use of paper handkerchiefs for consumptive people, to be burned, and not washed. Scrofula, or what is now known as tuberculosis, is undoubtedly the most common disease of domesticated animals, and it is not limited in its range to any particular locality, while pleuropneumonia, and anthrax, and other diseases that are well known to be contagious, occur as epidemics, which excite a general interest . from the seventy of their local ravages making it necessary for Government to interfere for their suppression by quarantine regulations. They aro less to bo dreaded than the insidious and persistent influence of tubercular diseases that aro everywhere prevalent. -lb hag been estimated that one-

seventh of the deaths of tho human rc.ee are caused by tuberculosis in its various forms, and that of those who die in the period of active middle age at least one-third arc the victims of tho same disease.

Statistics are wanting to show tho cause of death among domesticated animals, but it will be safe to say that quite as large a proportionate mortality, from natural causes, must be attributed to tuberculous diseases.

1 may call attention to the fact that domesticated animals, and especially those in confinement, are. peculiarly liable to tubercular disease, and it must also be admitted that among the best types of our modern improved bveids, which present the widest divergence from the normal characteristics of the species, this, predisposition is further intensified.

Many careful observers have for a long time been inclined to believe that tuberculous animals might communicate tho disease to others, and experiments recently made show conclusively that the disease is contagious.

Healthy pigs, rabbits, cats, guineapigs, and other small animals inoculated with tuberculous matter, or receiving in their food the juico of the flesh, tho milk, or excretions from the lungs of diseased animals, havo so uniformly become tuberculous that tho communication of the disease cannot be doubted. The exhalations of tie breath havo also been shown to bo an efficient source of infection.

In March 1382, DrKoeh made public his importantdiscovery that the cause of scrofula (tuberculosis) was a microscopic rent-like parasite (bacillus) which could be transferred from one animal to another and thus communicate the disease.

In the congenital form of hereditary scrofula tho disease may, therefore, bo directly communicated by the parents to their offspring by means of this speciGc contagium, which may bo conveyed in the mother's milk, or oven in the exhalations from the lungs. When tho disease appears later in life the inherited tendency to the disease consists in tho transmittal constitutional effects of the parents, winch act as predisposing causes by rendering the system peculiarly susceptible to tho influence of the specific tubercle-bacil-lus communicated by diseased animals. Aside from this inherited tendency, the most potent predisposing causes of scrofula aro protracted disorder of tho digestive organs, food deficient in quality and quantity, impure water, confinement in dark, damp, filthy, crowded and unventilated apartments, exposure to cold, or any other condition that lowers the vital powers. When a predisposition to scrofula is inherited, these conditions will be intensified in their action as predisposing causes of the disease.

According to Dr Aitken (" Practice of Medicine," vol. ii., p. 231,) the domesticated animal is more liable to scrofulous disease than the same animal in a wild state. Tho stabled cow, the penned sheep, the tamed rabbit and monkey, the caged lion, tiger or elephant are invariably cut off by scrofulous affections, due, to defective sanitary surroundings, which predispose the system to the action of the specific bacillus of contagion. The specific tubsrcle-bacillus, discovered by Dr Koch, furnishes a complete and satisfactory explanation of the experiments that have been made in regard to the contagiousness of the disease. Dr Koch succeeded in culti-

vating the tubercle-bacillus, in suitable nutritive materials, outside of the animal's body for as many as eight successive generations and during periods of several months, and animals inoculated with the new virus thus obtained became uniformly tuberculous.

Tim sputa of consumptive patients swarm with tubercle bacilli, many of which contain spores or geinu, Hint do not lose their vitality by dying. Koch found that such expectorated matters after drying for eight weeks very readily communicated the disease to guinea-pigs, and it is probable that the spores, under favourable condition, may retain their vitality tor an indefinite

period. Forthe growth and propagation of the bacilli a temperature of from Bfi to 10 if dog. Falir. was required. In their natural state the tuberclebacilli could not be seen with the microscope, but they were readily detected when subjected to a peculiar process of staining. These expeiimcnts, so ably and f-kil-fully, conducted are of the greatest practical importance from a sanitary point of view, as they do not only demonstrate the in inner in which the contagium is communicated, but they also clearly indicate the precautions that must he taken to prevent the diffusion of the disease. It has been observed that young animals kept near thoso that have tuberculosis are readily infected, and many of the cases of scrofula that are supposed to bo hereditary, when congenital, may be the results of immediate contagion. The importance of selecting breeding-stock that is free from tuberculosis cannot be too strongly urged, as diseased animals not only transmit a predisposition to the disease to their offspring but 'disseminate it directly by contagion. '- When it is generally known lh.it tuberculosis is contagious and that the specific germs, which are the existing cause, can be so readily communicated in various ways to those thatare not predisposed to it, strict sanitary regulations will be enforced to prevent the sale of tho milk or flesh of tuberculous animals, and raw or underdone meats will not find a place on our tables. As there is no known remedy for the cure of tuberculosis, good sanitary conditions, including thorough ventilation, a nourishing diet, and the isolation of the. subjects of tho disease, will be found the best means of preventing its disemiuation.