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24
Final report of the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis,
The Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the relations of human
and animal tuberculosis has now made its final report, and we consider it desirable
that the attention of the Council should be directed to its main conclusions. The
Commissioners were appointed to inquire and report with respect to tuber
culosis:—
(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.
In answer to the first question the conclusion arrived at is that "man must
therefore be added to the list of animals notably susceptible to bovine tubercle
bacilli," and that "whether one prefers to regard bovine tuberculosis and the
cases of tuberculosis in man which are caused by the human type of bacilli as
varieties of the same disease or as independent diseases, there can be no question
that human tuberculosis is in part identical with bovine tuberculosis."
As regards the second term of the reference the report states that mammals
and men can be reciprocally infected with tuberculosis, that bovine animals are
not completely immune to the human tubercle bacillus and adult human beings
can be infected with the bevine type, even the pulmonary form of this disease in
man being sometimes caused by the bovine tubercle bacillus.
In answer to the third question, viz., under what conditions, if at all, the
transmission of tuberculosis from animals to man takes place, and what are the
circumstances favourable or unfavourable to such transmission, the report states
that, as regards human tuberculosis, "animals, domestic and other, which have
been found capable of suffering from severe generalised tuberculosis of the human
type are comparatively few," and that "probably only where the cow or goat has
received a large dose of tuberculous material derived from man does the human
tubercle bacillus escape into the blood stream of the animal, reach her milk sinusos
and become eliminated with her milk." It cannot, however, the report goes on to
say, be confidently affirmed that man is wholly free from risk through animal food,
although the degree of danger cannot at present be determined. Turning to
bovine tuberculosis, the report shows that as regards the individual cases under
observation of persons suffering from tuberculosis, the lesions of the disease
(especially pulmonary tuberculosis) when fatal have been referable, with few
exceptions, to human bacilli. On the other hand, the report states that "there
can be no doubt that a considerable proportion of the tuberculosis affecting
children is of bovine origin, and particularly that which effects primarily the