ABSTRACT
The mammalian tubercle bacilli, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis, cause disease in a wide variety of mammals. In humans, domestic animals, nonhuman primates, and certain exotic hoofed animals, disease produced by M. bovis or M. tuberculosis cannot be differentiated by gross or microscopic examination of tissues. Medical anthropological studies have demonstrated that pre-Columbian cases of tuberculosis existed in southern Peru around the eighth Century. The gradual decrease in tuberculosis was a direct result of these important discoveries and their application to public health measures some years even before the advent of successful chemotherapy. Although tuberculosis occurs in all segments of the population, morbidity is higher in certain subpopulations. Tuberculosis in domestic and captive exotic animals provides a potential source of infection for disease in human patients. The signs of tuberculosis in animals usually vary with the distribution of tubercles in the body. Clinical evidence of disease may not become apparent in chronic cases until the terminal stages of disease.
