DR. KOCH ON COWS AND CONSUMPTION.
Good for Dr. Koch. There is the milk of human kindness in his veins. His declaration before the British congress of physicians that cows do not communicate consumption is a much needed relief. Medical men have us on too great a scare. They have so stocked everything that we eat, drink, touch, or handle, with germs or bacilli that life has become a constant alarm. It was time for a let up, and especially in the matter of milk. For what with water added to increase the quantity, and chemicals to preserve the sweetness, we had about all that we could stand at the hands of the dairyman. Putting in a lot of tuberculosis germs was too much. Therefore, Dr. Koch is to be thanked for ruling them out, or rather for declaring them harmless. It is good for the cows, and good for us. For nobody wanted to think that cows were going around the meadows with murder in their eyes, nor does anybody like the idea of murdering whole herds of fine cattle in the name of medical science. Still less do we want to believe that to drink a glass of milk is to populate our interior system with the agents of disease, destruction, and death. There are enough of other things to kill us, or to make life miserable. Dr. Koch contends that bovine tuberculosis is not communicable to human beings. In the attempted passage the germ does not reach our side of the shore. It gets lost in the “milky way,” or at least fails to set up in business when it arrives. The human system has established immigration laws against it, which are better enforced and more effective than those of our government. And it is to be taken for granted that a germ of fastidious taste would prefer tenderloin and porterhouse steaks to the tough pickings of the average human body. But the proof which the famous physician offered in support of his opinion is based upon experiment. He tells us that through the assistance of the government, he experimented on a score of cattle, endeavoring by every means to communicate to them human tuberculosis. But it did not communicate. The cattle gained in weight, winked at the doctor, and lay down and chewed the cud of content. When killed, they showed no signs of the affection. But when another lot of cattle were put under the test of bacilli from animals of their own kind, or similar kind, they showed serious signs of infection. From these facts Dr. Koch argues that the bacilli of human tuberculosis and those of bovine tuberculosis are so different in kind as not to be transmissible. Had the experiment been made the other way, the argument would have been more conclusive. But this is not practicable, for no score of human beings care to be experimented upon. The doctor says, however, that if the bacilli of bovine tuberculosis were able to infect human beings, many cases of tuberculosis caused by the consumption of food containing tubercle bacilli could not help but occur among the inhabitants of great cities, especially children. But while most medical men believe this to be the case, it is not really so. That a case of tuberculosis is caused by food can be assumed with certainty only when the intestines suffer first, but such cases are extremely rare. Another important declaration made in the congress was that of Professor Brouardel, dean of the medical faculty of Paris, who maintained that alcoholism is largely responsible for consumption. You will check the ravages of consumption, he said, by stopping the drink habit. This assertion is contrary to the common opinion that whisky is good for lung troubles. But it is a doubly good thing when a medical congress stands up for milk and bears down on alcohol. Most of us would rather trust the cow than the still.