ROYAL COMMISSION ON TUBERCULOSIS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1696, 31 August 1904, Page 76

ROYAL COMMISSION ON TUBERCULOSIS

The interim report, which is signed by the Commissioners —namely, Sir Michael Foster, M.P. (chairman), Professor G. S. Woodhead, Professor Sidney Martin, Professor MoFadyean, and Professor JR. W. Boyoe is as follows: We, your Majesty’s Commissioners, appointed to inquire and report with respect to tuberculosis: — 1. Whether the disease in animals and man is one and the same; 2. Whether animals and man can be reciprocally infected with it ; 3. Under what conditions, if at all, the transmission of the disease from animals to man takes place, and what a vo the circumstances favourable or unfavourable to such transmission, humbly submit this report on the progress which we have made in the inquiry. The greater part of the above refor.vacs is directed to the view which had he on expressed that the bacillus which given rise to tuberculosis in the bovine animal is specifically distinct from the bacillus which gives rise to tuberculosis :n the animal being, and that therefore v lie presence of the bovine bacillus in ■• ho milk or flesh of the cow, consumed as food by man, is not to be regarded as r, cause of tuberculosis in the latter. To this point we first turned our attention. After duly considering the matter, we name to the conclusion that it would be desirable not to begin the inquiry by v-aking evidence —that is to say, by collecting the opinions of others (though tlus might be desirable at a later stage), but to: attack the problem laid before us by conducting experimental investigations of our own. The first line of inquiry upon wliioh we entered may be stated as follows: —What are TH3E EFFECTS PRODUCED by introducing into the body of the bovine animal (calf, heifer N cow), either through the alimentary canal as food, or directly into the tissues by suboutaneoua or othier injection, tuberculosis material of human orgin i.e., material containing living tubercle bacilli obtained from various cases of tuberculous disease in human beings, and how far do these effects resemble or differ from the effects produced by introducing into the bovine animal, under conditions as similar as possible, tuberculous material of bovine origin —-i.e., material containing living tubercle bacilli obtained from cases of tuberculous disease in the cow, calf, or ox? We have up to the present made use in the above inquiry of more than twenty different “strains” of tuberculous material of human origin—that- is to say, of material taken from more than twenty cases of tuberculous disease in human beings, including sputum fiom phthisical patients and the diseased parts of the lungs in pulmonary tuberculosis, mesenteric glands in primary abdominal tuberculosis, tuberculous bronchial and cervical glands, and tuberculous joints. We have compared the effects produced by these with the effects produced by several different strains of tuberculous material of bovine origin. In the case of seven of • the above strains of human origin, the introduction of the human tuberculous material into cattle gave rise at once to acute tuberculosis, with the development of widespread severity. In the case of the remaining strains, the bovine animal into the tuberculous material was first introduced was affected to a less extent. The tuberculous disease was either limited to the spot where the material was introduced (this occurred, however, in two instances only, and these at the very beginning of our inquiry) or spread to a variable extent from the seat of inoculation along the lymphatic glands, with, at most,, the appearance of a very small amount of tubercle in such organs as the lungs and spleen. Yet tuberculous material taken from the /bovine animal thus affected, and introduced successively into other bovine animals, or into guinea-pigs from which bovine animals were subsequently inoculated, has, up .to the present, in the case of five of these remaining strains, ultimately given rise in the bovine animal to general tuberculosis of an intense character ; and we are still carving out observations in this direction. We have very carefully compared THE DISEASE thus set up in the bovine _ animal by material of human’origin with that set up in the bovine animal by material of bovine origin, and so far we have found the one* both in its broad general features and in its finer histological details, to be identical with the other. We have so far failed to discover any character by which we could distinguished the one from the other; and our records contain accounts of the post-mortem examinations of bovine animals infected with tuberculous material of human origin which might be used as typical descriptions of ordinary bovine tuberculosis. The results which we have thus obtained are so striking that we have felt it our duty to make them known with r out further delay in the present interim report. Wo defer to a further report all narration of the details of OUR EXPERIMENTS (and we may say that up to the prs:.ent_

time we have made use of more than two hundred bovine animals), as well aa all discussions, including those dealing with the influence of dose and of individual as well as racial susceptibility, with questions of the specific virulence of the different strains of bacilli, with the relative activity of cultures of baccilli and of emulsions of tuberculous organs and tissues, and with other points. In that report we shall deal fully with all these matters, as well as with the question why our results differ from those of some other observers. Meanwhile we have thought it our duty to make this short interim report, for the reason that the result at which we have arrived —namely, that tubercle of human origin can give rise in the bovine animal to tuberculosis identical with ordinary bovine tuberculosis —seems to us to show quite clearly that it would bo most unwise to frame or modify legislative measures in accordance with the view that human and bovine tubercle bacilli are specifically different from each other, and that the disease caused by the one is a wholly different thing from the disease caused by the other. In conclusion we desire to express in the strongest terms our appreciation of the most generous assistance giyen to the Commission by Sir James Blytli, who has placed unreservedly at our disposal his farm buildings and other accommodation at Stans ted. By his action not only has the nation been saved a very large necessary expenditure, but we liave been able by the help of the admirable arrangements made for us to carry out our investigations in a manner which would have been impossible had tho accommodaton and equipment for our inquiry been provided entirely at the public cost.

And we wish also to thank our secretary, Dr E. J. Stoegmann, and our observers, Drs Louis Cobbett, A. Stanley Griffith, Eastwood and Hutchens, a.s well as the rest of our staff, for the able services which they have untiringly rendered to us.