View report page

themselves as regards tuberculosis and health has
become a matter of close investigation.
It will be remembered that at the International
Congress on Tuberculosis, held in
London in 1901, Professor Koch stated that as a
result of certain investigations made by him, he
believed that human and bovine bacilli are different
in kind, and the statement was made that the
likelihood of human beings becoming infected to
any serious degree with bacilli of bovine origin
was so slight that it might be regarded as of little
practical moment. Naturally the opinion of so
eminent a Bacteriologist was widely used by those
interested in the matter financially for their own
ends.
The report of the Royal Commission, however,
has disproved the opinion of Professor Koch,
and it is hoped will put an end to this erroneous
theory which has had such a baneful influence
upon the interests of the public health.
The Commissioners stated "there can be 110
doubt but that in a certain amount of cases the
tuberculosis occurring in the human subject,
especially in children, is the direct result of the
introduction into the human body of the bacilli
of bovine tuberculosis; and there can also be no
doubt that, in the majority at least of these cases,
the bacilli are introduced through cow's milk.
18