ABSTRACT
From the standpoint of prevention of human disease it is unnecessary to consider tuberculosis of other animals than bovines. When the tubercle bacillus was discovered by Koch in r882, as Dr. J. S. Fulton put it, "A child of great promise had quickened in the womb of time." How strange that even in this period of relatively advanced modern science Koch's discovery only very slowly led to effective action against a great enemy of mankind! Even now direct action against the bacillus is too often placed in a secondary position, and removal of conditions which "make the bed" for tuberculosis are regarded as being alone essential. In practice the two lines of attack are one and indivisible. When direct attack against the bacillus was advised, greater emphasis was laid during many years on the avoidance of milk and meat from tuberculous cattle than on the prevention of infection from human consumptives. The underlying assumption was that tubercle bacilli producing disease in cattle and in mankind were identical.
