The communicability to man of diseases from animals used as food / by Henry Behrend.

  • Behrend, Henry, active 1881-1893.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The communicability to man of diseases from animals used as food / by Henry Behrend. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    enqairy centres in the oommunicability of the tuberculoua maladies, because not only is this class the most destructive of all to which mankind is liable (being accountable for at least one fifth of the entire mortality of this country), but also because, though it was long a matter of doubt whether the disease, as it exists in cattle, is identical with that of man, this question has row been solved i 1 the aflSrmative, and the evidence of its oommunicability is rapidly gaining strength, Since these words were penned, numerous experiments have con- firmed this evidence, and it is now rapidly approaching certainty that tubercu- losis can be conveyed from one body to another, not only by the ordinary means of contagion, but through the medium of food. In the address of Dr. Cameron alieady referred to, he remarks that consumption and the whole class of tuber- cular diseases to which it belongs have been proved to be eminently infectious ; and have been transferred from man to the lower animals, and from one animal to another. For some time past M. Toussaint has been engaged in investigating the subject, and he tells us that a large proportion of the cattle sent to the slaughter-houses in France suffer from the malady, and that the presence of tubercle in the lungs is not considered to render them unfit for human food ; and Dr. Cameron eays the position of affairs in this country is the same in both these respects. M. Toussaint was able to produce tubercular disease in swine by feeding them with flesh similarly affected ; and within the last few weeks he has succeeded in isolating and cultivating the microscopic orgsnism which gives rise to tuberculosis, and in reproducing tuberculosis with it in other animals. And he has further discovered the all-important fact in connection with this organism, that it can stand a high degree of heat without perishing^ so that he has inoculated the malady in cattle, from juice expressed from the steak of a tubercular ox, cooked so as to be slightly underdone. This is perhaps the most weighty practical result as yet attained in the course of these investigations, as it proves the fallacy of trusting to the effect of cooking, in destroying the inju- rious character of meat destined for food. In a valuable contribution to the literature of the subject, in the Nineteenth Century for October, 1881, Dr. Carpenter confirms the opinion that tubercular diseases can be induced through the alimentary canal ; and Dr. Creighton pub- lished a few months ago an elaborate essay on Bovine Tuberculosis in Man, treating of what the British Medical Journal, \n reviewing the work, calls a question of the utmost practical importance, and one which urgently calls for discussion and investigation from other points of view than those of the specu- lative pathologist. The result of Dr. Creighton's enquiries strengthens the evidence as to the identity of this malady in cattle and in man, and he unhesi- tatingly affirms that it is communicable from the latter to the former ; and Dr. SchuUer of Greifswald, who has devoted much attention to the elucidation of the subject, dec]g,res as the outcome of his experiments, that every form of Scrofula and Tuberculosis can be thus artificially induced. Lastly, in the address delivered in the section of Public Medicine at the International Medical Congress by its President, Mr. J. Simon, C.B., F.R.S., the late Medical OQicer of the Privy Council, he calls attention to the pressing importance of the question, to the immense number of popular experiments which are coa- stautly being carried on in the human subject by the ingestion of milk and meat