The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-09-22
Should Milk Supply
of City be Tested?

The COW is the most useful of all
domestic animals, and also the most
dangerous. She supplies milk to the
children, but in too many cases tuber-
culosis as well. Science has shown
during the most exhaustive investiga-
tons through period of more than
ten years that a large percentage OF
human tuberculosis las we now
call 'consumptionO is traceable to the
COW.
That makes the COW responsible
for a vast deal of human suffering, for
tuberculosis has become a national
plague. Each year it sweeps away
enough men, women and children TO
establish a city larger than Dayton,
Ohio by ten thousand. In ten years
ten such cities could be built by tu-
berculosis victims and that would bulk
larger in the life of such a state as
Indiana, than all her first class cities
now do.
Mr. f C. Schroeder, superintendent
of the experiment station of the Uni
ted States Department of Animal In
dustry is responsible for saying that:
Exposes Public Health.
Tuberculosis is undoubtedly con-
tracted from two great sources, hui
IuDSl CulOuo lHQlN anu III
bercuIous cattle" The tuberculous
where says, lis one of the greatest
dangers to which public health is ex-
posed"
1t must be understood that the bo-
vine tubercle germ, as the scientists
call the bacillus which attacks cat
tie, is a distinct type with peculiar
habits of its own. The human bacil-
lus cannot thrive without air, hence is
| always found in ventilated parts of
the body. especially the lungs. The
| bovine bacillus, on the other hand, is
like the lock-jaw germ; it doesn't
need air AS result we find it at
work in the intestines, the glands,
joints and similar places.
Infection Works Fast.
1t was once supposed, even by such
international authorities as Prof.
Koch, that the cattle type of tubercle
germ was not infectious to man, but
it has since been proved beyond all
doubt that it is highly infectious. And
not only is it infectious, it is more
virulent than the human type. 1t
breeds faster and 1t works harder.
1t is not only the living germ which
gives us cause for fear, the poisons
manufactured by the germ in life and
caused by it's decay when dead give
rise when imbibed with milk, to many
slow-moving but fatal and painful
chronic diseases. Therefore it is i'm
possible to tell with accuracy just how
much of our sufferings are due to the
tuberculous cow.
The investigators, long at work on
the subject, have largely confined
themselves to the developed cases of
tuberculosis traceable to infection Of
milk. But these cases do not always
bring immediate death; they may re-
main hidden away in the body for
years undetected-all the time gradu-
ally poisoning the organism and caus-
ing weakness and suffering and paw
ing the way for other diseases. Three
European investigators, Drs. Burk-
hardt, Nageli and Schlenker, found, in
2,052 human bodies examined, ninety
one percent with a tuberculous infec-
ton.
Germ Enters System.
Where does all this infection come
from? The old theory was that we in
herit' it but that is now exploded.
Neither is it true, as most think, that
we breathe it; much is taken in that
way, but not most. After a tubercu-
losis germ has been exposed to the
sunlight for a while it dies. The
scientists are coming to believe that
tubercle germs are taken in for the
most part through the mouth with
our food and drink. To quite Prof
Schroeder again:
THE introduction of bacilli into the
body through the uninjured wall of the