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9
A.D. 1868. Chauveau, in France, introduced tuberculosis in bovines by
causing them to eat tubercular matter mixed with their food.
A.D. 1877. Pasteur definitely established the specific pathogenic
influence of certain minute organisms, thread like bodies like rods or sticks
which, in 1850, Bayer and Davaine had discovered in the blood of animals
suffering from anthrax.
A.D. 1880. Tappeiner made animals tuberculous by causing them to
breathe air containing tuberculous expectoration in the form of dust.
A.D. 1881. Robert Koch, of Berlin, discovered, isolated, and cultivated
the bacillus of tuberculosis.
After this year, clinical researches were undertaken in all countries. In
England by Watson-Cheyne, Dreschfeld, and C. T.Williams; in France by
Chantemesse, Duguet, Gosselin, Hericourt, and Warlomont; In Italy by
Celli, Cavagnis, Guarnieri, and Yitolini; in Germany by Baumgarten, Biedert,
Langerhans, Veraguth, and many others, with the result that Koch's observations
were entirely verified, and that his bacillus was acknowledged as the
specific cause of the disease.
WHAT IS TUBERCULOSIS ?
Generally the word tuberculosis is associated in the popular mind with
phthisis, or consumption of the lungs, which is its most fatal form. There are,
however, other forms which are known under the names Tubercular
Meningitis {i.e. of the membranes of the brain), Tubercular Peritonitis, Tabes
Mesenterica, Lupus {i.e., Tubercle in the skin), Tubercle of various organs,
General Tuberculosis, and Scrofula, which are the headings under which the
disease is classified in the death returns of the Registrar-General. Sometimes
the disease, especially when in the joints and bones causes suppurations in
various places, and occasions surgical operations " almost as various in their
nature as their locality."
It is a disease not only of man but also of animals. It is met with more
frequently, however, in those animals which are domesticated or confined, such
as cows, pigs, rabbits, monkeys, fowls, pigeons, ducks and turkeys.
The cause of the disease is a bacillus, " Koch's bacillus," as it is called
after its brilliant discoverer. There can be no tubercular disease without its
presence; and, therefore, if we stamp out the bacillus we preserve life. A
recent writer observes "from our point of view, tuberculosis is a disease