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of the tubercular granulations ; they become caseous, disintegrate, and assume a
greyish and yellowish colour, and when the transformation is complete no
cellular arrangement is recognisable. It is in this manner that Koch's
baccilli thrive and perform their deadly work, and thereby annually and prematurely
carry off many thousands of human beings, and it is these baccilli
that man has set himself the task of stamping out.
The bacilli themselves are fungoid vegetable growths and are small rodlike
bodies in shape and appearance resembling small very slender sticks, varying
in length from 80 to 300 millionths of an inch, and 12 millionths in thickness.
They are straight or curved, sometimes considerably so, and may be seen
under the microscope, at a magnitude of 600 diameters, singly, in pairs, or
collected in groups. They can be easily obtained by straining sputum or
tubercular matter with methylin blue, when some hours later, on washing off
the superfluous colouring matter, the bacilli appear, as described, in the field of
the microscope.
ACCESS OF THE BACILLUS TO MAN.
The heredity of the disease has now been proved to be of such rare
occurrence that it may practically be set aside as a matter of little or no
moment; and so also, as of no great sanitary importance, may those cases
which arise from scratches or other abrasions or ruptures of the skin remain
unnoticed.
There is, however, one great gateway through which the bacillus enters
the body, namely the mouth, into and through which it is conveyed either by
the air or by food, thus easily gaining access to the throat, the lungs, or the
digestive tract.
Now as every bacillus must have sprung from a predecessor, so also must
it have had its breeding place in an animal, and must have passed out from
that animal. Consequently we are brought to these conclusions that the
disease in man must have been caused either by bacilli contained in
(a) discharges or excretions from man or infected animals;
(b) the milk of infected animals; or (c) the flesh of infected animals.
With respect to the first of these conclusions it is a well established fact
that bacilli are almost invariably present in the dust of rooms which have been
occupied by phthisical patients, who cough, bring up mucus, spit on the
floor, or are otherwise careless in destroying their sputum, which on drying
becomes pulverized, floats about as dust, and at once becomes a very real danger
to other persons. Now in reference to this subject Dr. Gordon in a report to
the Local Government Board, says as the outcome of varied and repeated