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98
Interim Report of the Royal Commission on
Tuberculosis.—It will be remembered that in September, 1901, I
reported to the Council the appointment of a Royal Commission to
inquire and report with respect to tuberculosis : (1) whether the
disease in animals and man is one and the same ; (2) whether
animals and man can be reciprocally infected with it ; (3) under
what conditions, if at all, the transmission of the disease from
animals to man takes place, and what are the circumstances favourable
or unfavourable to such transmission. The Commissioners
appointed were Sir Michael Foster, K.C.B., Professor Sims Woodhead,
Professor Sidney Martin, Professor John MacFadyean, and
Professor Rubert Boyce.
The Commissioners have now issued (under date June 1st, 1904),
an interim report on their labours. The first line of enquiry upon
which they entered may be stated, in their own words, as follows :—
"What are the effects produced by introducing into the body of
the bovine animal (calf, heifer, cow), either through the alimentary
canal as food, or directly into the tissues by subcutaneous or other
injection, tuberculous material of human origin—i.e., material containing
living tubercle bacilli obtained from the various eases of
tuberculous disease in human beings, and how far do these effects
resemble or differ from the effects produced by introducing into the
bovine animal, under conditions as similar as possible, tuberculous
material of bovine origin—i.e., material containing living tubercle
bacilli obtained from cases of tuberculous disease in the cow, calf
or ox ?
"We have up to the present made use in the above inquiry of
more than 20 different "strains" of tuberculous material of human
origin—that is to say, of material taken from more than 20 cases of
tuberculous disease in human beings, including sputum from
phthisical patients and the diseased parts of the lungs in pulmonary
tuberculosis, mesenteric glands in primary abdominal tuberculosis,
tuberculous bronchial and cervical glands, and tuberculous joints.
We have compared the effects produced by these with the effects
produced by several different strains of tuberculous material of
bovine origin.
" In the case of seven of the above strains of human origin, the
introduction of the human tuberculous material into cattle gave rise