BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS, 
A FRUITFUL SOURCE OF 
Human Disease and Death. 
J. D. PLUNKET, M. D., 
OF NASHVILLE, TENN., 
MEMBER OF THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH, AND ITS COM- 
MITTEE ON THIS SUBJECT. 
REPRINTED FROM THE SECOND REPORT OF THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. 
(January 1, 1885.) BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
Dr. Robert Koch, in an address delivered in March, 
1882, before the Physiological Society of Berlin, upon 
“ The Etiology of Tubercular Disease,” says : “One-seventh 
of the deaths of the human race are due to tubercular 
disease,” and recently published statistics, while probably 
below the actual facts, show that, in 1880, there occurred, 
leaving out fractions, ninety-five thousand deaths from 
the one single cause—consumption, in the United States 
alone. 
Any influence, then, which tends to bring about so great 
destruction and distress to the human family deserves cer- 
tainly the most pains-taking and exhaustive investigation, 
and, as far as it may be possible, its abatement or mitiga- 
tion. 
To this end, therefore, has this paper been prepared, that 
the facts herein contained, and which are but recent in 
their discovery, may be more widely scattered among the 
people for their information and guidance, and with the 
hope of obtaining the practical result of establishing, under 
the sanction of law, a system of inspection by which the 
danger of partaking of infected meat and milk may be re- 
duced to the minimum. 
Certain zoological affinities between man and the lower 
order of animals have, in recent time, provoked much 
speculation among philosophers and naturalists. Yet, im- 
pressed as we are, no aspect of the subject is so full of prac- 
tical interest and instruction, so full of weal or woe to the 
race, as that to be derived from a careful study of the patho- 
logical relations of the two. For our present purposes, we 
3 4 
BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
restrict the scope of this paper to a brief consideration© f 
the danger of communicating diseases, especially such as 
are tuberculous in their nature, to man through the use of 
food products of infected animals. From a broad state- 
ment of fact we learn that the skeletal frame work and 
internal organization of the higher mammalia are not only 
morphologically identical with the structure of man, and 
thus subserve the same purpose in animal economy ; but the 
blood is similar in chemical composition, contains the same 
anatomical elements, and is subject to analogous changes in 
disease; hence, in the use of food products of infected ani- 
mals the danger of communicating to man some virulent 
blood poison is always imminent, for “ nowhere in the 
struggle of life against the manifold causes of disease,” it 
has been truly said, “ do we more effectually imperil our 
health and happiness, than in (partaking of animal foot! of 
a suspicious character. ” Much effort has been made in 
this direction during the recent past, and many facts of im- 
portance have been brought to light; yet, practically, we 
are but still only upon its threshold, and what occasions 
most regret is that the accomplished laborers engaged in 
this wide field of scientific research at this time, are, in 
reality, but few. 
However, it is suggested that the time has now arrived 
when the sanitarian and physician should no longer neglect 
it, but, with zeal kindled afresh, press forward to the explo- 
ration of this realm in the causation of disease, and thus 
more accurately survey those boundary lines in pathology 
which now seem the human maladies from those 
of our food-producing animals. Here, no doubt, will be 
realized one of the highest and most important achievements 
in medical science, as through knowledge thus obtained, we 
will be able to indicate causes of human disease now 
scarcely suspected, or but dimly comprehended. Less than 
fifteen years ago we were utterly ignorant of the fact that 
milk ever became a carrier of infection—yet, Mr. Earnest BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
5 
Hart, of London, states that during this short period, and 
up to 1881, there occurred in England alone, fifty epidemics 
of typhoid fever, fifteen of scarlet fever, and seven of diph- 
theria, traced to the use of infected milk. 
That the list should end here, and permanently be lim- 
ited to the three diseases named, there is nothing, in the 
analogy of epidemics as at present understood, to warrant 
us for a moment in believing. At a glance, then, are we 
profoundly impressed with the fact that nowhere exists there 
greater danger to the public health than is to be found com- 
prehended in the science of dietetics, and no aspect of it 
demands a more thorough and intelligent supervision, or 
one more worthy of our daily consideration, than the san- 
itary condition of the milk and meat we consume, or one 
better calculated to enhance the cause of sanitary science, 
than the practical study of those ailments which affect our 
food-producing animals. 
The extent to which the different kinds of diseased meat 
are liable to be used will depend in a great measure upon 
the comparative frequency that these infectious maladies oc- 
cur in a given locality, and the more insidious the nature of 
the disease the greater the liability of its transmission from 
animals that are being slaughtered that are more or less af- 
fected. 
“All meat that would cause sickness, disease, or death 
in man, if partaken as food, must be regarded in the light 
of sanitary science as diseased, and consequently unfit for 
human use, in any form.” Meat possessing such qualities 
must come from an animal affected with some form of an 
infectious malady, the germs of which are contained in the 
flesh, and are liable to be transmitted; for a disease in 
which a contagious virus is developed during its course, 
or a virulent principal generated in the blood, renders 
the meat from all animals thus affected exceedingly 
dangerous as an article of food. “ Meat is not ma- 
terially affected by the entozoic maladies of animals, 6 
BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
unless the parasite, in some stage of its existence, makes 
its abode in the flesh, and has not been destroyed by 
cooking.” Practically, then, from this we conclude that 
there are but few diseases which absolutely render these an- 
imal supplies unfit for human use so far as yet known, 
prominent among which have been mentioned tuberculosis, 
malignant anthrax, small-pox, erysipelas, hydrophobia, 
and the two parasitic affections caused by the trichina spi- 
ralis and the measle tape-worms. There are, however, 
other maladies from which our slaughtered animals are lia- 
ble to have suffered, and which may greatly impoverish the 
nutritive quality of the meat, and thus render it unpleasant 
in taste and general appearance, but if the flesh contains no 
animal poisons, or other morbid products, no harm can 
come from its use, so far as we now know, when served up- 
on our table. And even a diseased article, when thoroughly 
cooked, may not prove injurious to one whose digestive 
powers are active. Many varieties of diseased meat are so 
patent that even by the dexterity of the butcher’s art it is 
impossible to disguise them. Measly pork and beef, for in- 
stance, are easily detected by the unaided eye; but the par- 
asitic contamination of such meat is often overlooked in the 
absence of official inspection or sufficient popular informa- 
tion regarding it, and consequently there is ever present an 
opportunity for a tape-worm to become initiated in all who 
may partake of it. The tubercular deposits, we are in- 
formed, which are found at times upon the pleural membrane 
lining the chest cavity of the animal, thereby causing the 
lungs to adhere to the ribs or along the internal walls of the 
abdomen, are sufficient evidence alone to condemn the 
carcass. 
However, without a careful inquiry into the history of 
the article, or a microscopic inspection, it is no easy matter 
in all cases to decide whether meat is possessed of injurious 
qualities or not. 
Take, for example, trichinous pork and any of the many BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
7 
cases following its use; none of the victims ever suspected 
the meat until a peculiar form of sickness made its appear- 
ance, involving all who partook of it, and we are informed 
this is also true of black leg veal and other fine-looking 
specimens of meat that are affected with anthrax poison, and 
probably still other infections not yet fully made out. 
To what extent trichinosis exists among the hogs of 
Tennessee, we have no positive information beyond the 
fact that it does exist in some degree, but as the larger 
part of the pork used in this State is imported from points 
north and west of us, principally from Indianapolis and 
Chicago, it may not be inappropriate to here digress a 
moment and give some facts as to the prevalence of 
trichinosis in the hogs found in the region from which the 
pork-packers of these places largely derive their supplies. 
It will suffice for our present purpose to take, for illus- 
tration upon this point, the situation as we find it in the 
State of Indiana alone. 
Dr. G. Sutton, of Aurora, Ind., says, in a report made to 
the American Medical Association, at its meeting last May, 
“ We know at the present time that there is a desire to sup- 
press facts in relation to the existence of trichina in our 
pork, but after an experience of ten years, in which I have 
examined a large amount of pork, I can say that from three 
to sixteen per cent, of the hogs in southeastern Indiana are 
infected with this parasite. The prevalence of the disease 
amongst the hogs varies greatly in different localities. I 
know that in one instance pork that was brought to my 
office by a farmer for examination was found to be filled 
with trichina. This pork, instead of being used in his 
family, we have the most conclusive evidence, was at once 
shipped to Cincinnati and sold in the market. Drs. Hard- 
ing and Bobbin, of Lawrenceburgli, informed me that they 
had microscopically examined specimens from two hundred 
and forty-five different hogs slaughtered in the vicinity of 
Lawrenceburgh, and found trichina present in forty of the 8 
BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
specimens, making about sixteen and one-third per cent, of 
all examined. Drs. Gatch and Miller, of Lawrenceburgh, 
also informed me that they had examined with a microscope 
two hundred hogs killed for pork, and found trichina in 
thirteen, making about six per cent. Dr. G. V. Stevenson, 
of Rising Sun, also wrote to me that he had found trichina 
in pork killed in Ohio county; and Dr. Sale, of Dills- 
borough, told me that he had found trichina in pork'killed 
in that section of the country. 
“We have seen notices recently, in the newspapers, that 
trichina had been discovered, and that trichinosis had pre- 
vailed at Liberty, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Decatur, and 
other places in Indiana. 
“ When we bear in mind that upwards of 5,000,000 
of hogs are slaughtered and packed in the Western States, 
not including those which are put up for family use by the 
farmers; that if four per cent, of this pork is diseased, 
which we believe to be a low estimate, we have 221,484 dis- 
eased hogs put annually upon the market, or at an average 
of two hundred pounds to the hog, 44,296,800 pounds of 
diseased meat, every ounce of which, under favorable cir- 
cumstances, is capable of producing disease.” 
Many cases of sickness which are diagnosed as typhoid 
fever, chronic diarrhea, etc., there are good grounds for be- 
lieving, are produced by trichina. 
Inspection properly performed by one who is in every 
way fully qualified and equipped is the most reliable means 
of averting the danger to health and life consequent upon 
partaking of animal food which is diseased, and a danger, 
too, that is not only, we find, unseen, but unsuspected. It 
is to the consideration of this danger, as it manifests itself 
particularly in the possible transmission of bovine tubercu- 
losis to man, through the use of meat and milk as food, that 
I will now direct your attention briefly. 
Reasons for suspecting that tuberculosis of the bovine 
species may be transmitted to man have been suggested BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
9 
from time to time, bat especially since the demonstration 
of the infectious origin of tuberculosis by Villemin in 1865. 
The first ground of our suspicion or alarm is that tubercle, 
or, as it is called, pearl-disease or consumption, is quite 
common in the bovine species of animals to which we trust 
so implicitly—one might almost say blindly—for a large 
part of our food; and as the production of tuberculosis is 
shown, by the recent discovery of Koch, to be dependent 
upon the presence of distinctive bacilli, which bacilli are 
found to exist in abundance in the pearl-nodules, as they 
appear in the pearly distemper of bovine animals, the 
identification of tuberculosis with the pearl-disease is thus 
clearly established. How prevalent the disease is among 
the cattle of Tennessee cannot at this time be stated with any 
approach to accuracy, as after an extensive inquiry among 
the dairymen and farmers in different localities through- 
out the State, we have failed to elicit any information 
which would justify our attempting even an approxima- 
tion. In a large number of instances the reply came, 
“My attention having never been called to the subject, 
I have never observed particularlyj” while others again 
stated, especially dairymen, that “occasionally they have 
lost a cow from consumption.” 
“ Those who know nothing,” says a distinguished writer 
upon veterinary medicine, “ of tuberculosis, may question 
its claim to a place amongst what may be called the four 
bovine scourges, viz.: Pleuro-pneumonia, Eczema epizootica 
(Foot-and-Mouth disease), Cattle-plague (Rinderpest) and 
Tuberculosis (Pearl-disease or Consumption), but, as will be 
seen on studying it, it is more insidious (and equally 
deadly) to the stock owner than either of the other three 
diseases.” 
Tuberculosis is an inherited and chronic disease which 
may be present for years in the body of an animal and give 
rise to no symptoms. The distinctive formations of the 
serous membranes—the pearl-nodules of the disease—we are 
informed, “are sometimes found in animals that have been 10 
BOVINE TUBEKCULOSIS. 
slaughtered in perfect condition.” But the disease in its 
worst form, or so far advanced as to give rise to signs 
and symptoms during life, “is mostly met with in milch 
cows, and more especially in old cows.” 
“The cow-houses,” it is stated, “in or near large towns 
contained the largest proportion of diseased animals suffering 
from tuberculosis.” The close confinement, the artificial 
food, the want of pure air, pure water and sunlight, to 
which they are here subjected, all tend to develop the disease. 
The cows are milked as long as it is profitable to milk them, 
and they are then sold, out of the herd, probably, to the 
butchers. 
Some breeds are more liable to the disease than others, 
and it is said there are breeds which are entirely free from 
the disease. 
Prof. Thomas Walley, of Edinburgh, says : “The breed of 
animals which, in my experience, are most subject to tubercle, 
are Alderneys, Guernseys (the latter in a much less degree, 
however, than the former), and Short-horns, amongst home 
cattle, and amongst foreign cattle, the Danish. It must not, 
however, be assumed from this remark that all Short-horns 
are equally predisposed ; it is only in particular districts and 
with particular strains that this holds good. Neither would I 
have it assumed that all pure and highly-cultured strains 
are contaminated ; but I do, with confidence, assert this— 
that quite half, if not more than half, of the well-known 
strains are tainted with the leprosy of scrofula. With re- 
gard to the majority of our pure breeds, I can only speak 
positively of those with which I am practically acquainted. 
In Highland cattle I have never seen tubercle, though it is 
very possible that those who have opportunities of seeing 
autopsies of old cows may have done so. In some districts 
Herefords are peculiarly exempt from the disease; while in 
others, as in some parts of North Wales, I have seen 
scrofula frequently developed. The old smoky-faced Mont- 
gomeryshire cattle, few though they were, during my resi- 
dence amongst them, I seldom saw affected, and the same BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
11 
remark holds good with reference to the old Staffordshire 
Long-horns. The Ayrshires in certain districts are some- 
what prone to tubercle, while in others they are free from 
it; but, under the influence of change of climate, they 
become particularly predisposed. The polled Aberdeen- 
shires seem to be particularly exempt, at least I have never 
seen tubercle in them; and I have it from Mr. McCombie, 
that he has never seen it in any cattle of the polled breed, 
however closely bred.” 
Similar information, as regards the effects of climate and 
locality upon the different strains in Tennessee, is especially 
to be desired. 
Virchow places the average of the disease to be found in 
the cattle of Prussia at from fifteen to twenty per cent., but 
the amount of disease is generally put at a higher figure 
than that. Without adopting the most alarming estimate 
of the prevalence of the pearl-disease or consumption 
in the bovine species, there need be no hesitation in 
concluding that the milk of cows in a more or less 
advanced state of the tubercular disease is constantly 
being consumed by infants and adults; that, in fact, 
the species of domestic animals which is so much in 
our confidence that we even drink of one of its secre- 
tions and eat of its flesh, and sometimes even of its vis- 
cera, is a species that is widely tainted with tubercular dis- 
ease. That alone is fact enough to cause uneasiness. Add 
to that the sort of evidence that has been obtained by ex- 
periments on animals, and we seem to have the best grounds 
for believing that tubercle may come to the human species 
from the cow. Some pathologists have proceeded by inocu- 
lating the tuberculous matter from the cow under the skin 
of the rabbit, or other animal, or by injecting it into their 
veins; while others have experimented by feeding certain 
of the common domestic animals with the milk of tubercu- 
lous cows, or with the actual tubercle-nodules. If all the 
experiments have not succeeded, a sufficient number of them 
have to prove that animals may be made tuberculous, either 12 
BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
by inoculation with tuberculous matter from the cow, or by 
feeding with the tuberculous substance, and even with the 
milk of the diseased animal. 
That tuberculosis, as it exists in cattle, says Dr. Cor- 
nelius B. Fox, of South Essex, “ can be conveyed to 
calves, rabbits, guinea pigs, etc., by the milk of an 
animal suffering from the disease, has been proven over 
and over again by Chaureau, Klebs, Gerlach, Leisering, 
Zurn, Bollinger and others.” Klebs asserts that, when milk 
has been deprived of its solid particles, the tubercular 
virus is still found in the fluid portion, that it is not destroyed 
by cooking, and that it is all the more active as the disease 
has reached to an advanced stage. He is of opinion that 
the disease may be developed in children through the 
medium of the milk. That such milk is liable to ex- 
cite diarrhea and debility in children has been recog- 
nized. 
Such then are the established facts which create a pre- 
sumption that the enormous consumption of cow’s milk by 
infants particularly, and by adults, as well as the use of infe- 
rior kinds of meat—especially as is bought by the poor—is 
not unattended with risk, but on the contrary, and gives 
special significance to the fact, as shown by Fox and others 
recently, that but twenty-five per cent, of the cases of con- 
sumption in man are due to hereditary transmission,while the 
other seventy-five per cent, are caused by unsanitary influ- 
ences among which should be placed prominently un- 
wholesome food, of which infectious milk and meat will 
be found, we have no doubt, to be most prolific. 
Then, that with increasing prevalence there exists among 
our cattle, especially among our milch cows, a malignant dis- 
ease, which publicly is almost unknown, and one we have 
seen, which sustains the relation of cause and effect, in some 
measure at least, to that which, possibly, is the most fruitful 
source of human disease and death, there exists no longer 
room for doubt. BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
13 
The subject demands, therefore, the immediate attention 
of our public authorities, State and municipal, and should 
receive a candid consideration, and the deliberation of our 
most enlightened minds and professional experts in the de- 
vising and enforcing of such sanitary measures as will pro- 
tect our tables, control the traffic, and stamp out the dis- 
ease.