Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/235

Rh apparent between bacilli from different sources. But although I devoted the greatest attention to this point, I could find nothing of the kind. In all the cultures, whether taken from miliary tubercles, lupus or perlsuchtbovine tubercolosis [sic], the tubercle bacilli behaved exactly the same."

Our knowledge of the nature of the tubercle bacillus has been increased until at this time several distinct kinds are recognized. These may conveniently be classified according to their chief sources into human, bovine and avian tubercle bacilli, and into so-called tubercle bacilli of cold-blooded animals. This last group of bacilli, which will detain us only a short time, differs greatly from the other varieties, as can readily be seen when the fact is recalled that the high temperatures—temperatures approaching blood heat—which are required for the growth of the mammalian and avian bacilli, quite preclude their multiplication under conditions of ordinary external nature. Hence they are not adapted to a life outside the living body except as cultivated artificially at this relatively high temperature. In man's conflict with tuberculosis this fact is of the greatest service, since by reason of it he is enabled to disregard the danger of any increase in tubercle bacilli outside the animal body. The relatively low temperatures at which the tubercle bacilli of cold-blooded animals develop adapt them, indeed, to an independent existence; but, as they are wholly devoid of power to cause disease in warm-blooded animals and as they would appear to have a restricted dissemination even among cold-blooded species, they are of comparatively small importance.

Of far greater consequence is the question whether the disparity which exists between the several kinds of tubercle bacilli derived from warm-blooded animals is a wide one. This question, which at first sight may appear to be chiefly of academic interest, has, in reality, far-reaching practical significance. The close relationship which man bears to domestic animals makes every fact of animal disease of high value to him. And in the case of no animal disease are facts of greater moment than in tuberculosis. Not only is the human race, by reason of its dependence upon the animal kingdom for food, work, etc., exposed to the diseases of animals which are transmissible to man, but domestic animals are also exposed to diseases of human beings. This correlative susceptibility may, therefore, cooperate to produce a vicious circle of events by which infection or the dangers of infection are kept alive and threatening. Hence it is that an effective solution of the problem of limitation of tuberculosis, whether by suppression outright or by suppression through the induction of immunity, must take into account the degree to which tuberculous animals of different species, through direct or more remote association, are a source of danger to one another.

There is no longer any doubt that the avian tubercle bacillus departs considerably from the human and from the bovine types of bacilli.