Tuberculous infection through the alimentary canal / by Sheridan Delépine.

  • Delépine, Sheridan, 1855-1921.
Date:
[between 1890 and 1899]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tuberculous infection through the alimentary canal / by Sheridan Delépine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    in many of the first series of experiments the blood had been collected without sufl&cient precaution to prevent the admixture of tuberculous products present in various parts of the body. For several other reasons many of these experiments may be objected to.* Inoculations made with meat juice give equally ambiguous results. Out of 52 experiments by Gratia and Lienaux, Peuch, Galtier, Veyssiere and Humbert, Arloing, and Nocard, 14 yielded positive results. To these should be added the experiments of Bollinger and Steinheil,t and also those of Dreschfeld, which have given positive results. On the other hand, we have another series of 27 experiments by Bollinger and Kastner and by MacFadyean, with nothing but negative results. J To these should be added experiments of Nocard and others, which have als& yielded a very large proportion of negative results. The differences between results obtained by inoculation and ingestion are not, on the whole, so great as has been alleged by some writers. From what precedes it is evident that there is no doubt as to the danger of eating tuberculous food, but there is a divergence of opinion among authorities as to the parts of an animal which are infectious. Toussaint was of opinion that tuberculosis was a disease totius substantive corporis (from which it would follow that any part of the body was capable of producing tuberculosis by inoculation or ingestion). This view cannot be accepted as true, except in cases of very advanced general tuberculosis. Various attempts have been made to prove that though this is not always true, the blood can, at times, contain enough tubercle bacilli to render any part of the body infectious. This, however, has been shown by Bang, Nocard, and Macfadyean to be an extremely rare occurrence. The only thing which has been clearly proved is that whenever an organ shows distinct tuberculous lesions, this organ is capable of trans- mitting tuberculosis by inoculation or ingestion. It is, therefore, interesting to find what is the prevalence of tuber- culosis in the various organs of bovidse, which of all the animals used for food, are those liable to tuberculosis. According to Nocard§ the organs of oxen and cows are affected in the following order of frequency: Lungs and-pleura, 40 per cent; lungs alone, 20 to 25 per cent; pleura and peritoneum alone, 15 to 20 per cent; lymphatic glands, genital organs, mamma), bones, articulations, 15 to 25 per cent. Nocard insists upon the fact that it is not very unusual to find lymphatic ganglia aff-ected without there being any trace of tuberculosis Journal of Comparative Pathology, 1890, p. 77. \ DeutteJie ZeitKhrift fur-Thia-medicin, Doo., 1SS9. } Journal of Comparative Pathology, 1892, p. 29. § Nocard (Ed.). Los tuberculoses anlmalos. Paris, 1895, p. 13.