CONSUMPTION VICTIMS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6314, 14 September 1907, Page 4

CONSUMPTION VICTIMS

DEADLY EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS, HAPPY EATS AND FOWLS. Some days ago (says the London “Daily. News") the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis issued an interim report -which, sated thut.tb.eir experiments showed that there was no difference between human and bovino tuberculosis. Recently another bulky Flue Book of over 700 pages was issued on “Tho Pathogenic Effects of Bovine Viruses/' It is lull cf information not easily understanded of the lay mind, and of pictures which cannot but be regarded as repugnant outside the dissecting room and laboratory. Fifteen different species of animals 1 were inoculated with various viruses—the ox, the goat, the pig, the chimpanzee, the monkey, the baboon, the lemur, the dog, the cat, the. rabbit, the guineapig, the hedgehog, the mongoose, the rat, and the mouse. In the general results it was found that the goat was more susceptible to the bovino tubercle bacillus than tho calf;.the disease produced in pigs, though readily set up, is not necessarily fatal. Tho chimpanzee and the various species of monkeys are all highly susceptible, only one of them 1 living ICO days after inoculation. The dog is very resistant to subcutaneous inoculation, but may develop general tuberculosis when the material is inoculated intraperitoneally.; and while cats are less susceptible than kittens, tuberculosis is readily set up in them both by either mean of inoculation. Tho extent oftho experiments on mongooses and hedgehogs was not sufficient to permit of a definite statement being made. Hedgehogs do not appear to b© very susceptible. Of thirty-three rabbits inoculated the majority only lived for 18 to 24. days. During the experimental work nearly 2000 guinea-pigs have been inoculated, and all the viruses possess high virulence for this animal. Feeding experiments with tho bovine tubercle bacillus were carried out with two objects. 1. To ascertain tho relative susceptibility of different species’ of animals to this mode of inoculation. 2. To study tho anatomical distribution of tuberculosis produced by feeding. Altogether 318 animals wore fed, comprising fifteen distinct species, and it was shown that all developed tuberculosis in this way, , with the exception of tho rat and the fowl, and in varying degrees. The young pig is the most susceptible. the adult dog the most resistant. The goat is* less susceptible than the pig. and the calf apparently less susceptible than the goat. Cats are much ranro easily infected than dogs. General progressive tuberculosis is with difficulty set up in dogs. Several rats were fed with enormous numbers of < tubercle bacilli, and nothing was found'in them beyond some "minute necrotic foci in the mesenteric glands. In the few experiments performed with fowls no disease at all wrvs produced. t