The Influence of heredity and contagion on the propagation of tuberculosis : and the prevention of injurious effects from consumption of the flesh and milk of tuberculous animals / by A. Lydtin, G. Fleming, and Van Hertsen.

  • Lydtin, A.
Date:
1883
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Influence of heredity and contagion on the propagation of tuberculosis : and the prevention of injurious effects from consumption of the flesh and milk of tuberculous animals / by A. Lydtin, G. Fleming, and Van Hertsen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    and in Germany as Pcrisucht, or Tuberculosis. The latter designation is most admissible, because of the relations of this bovine affection to Tuberculosis in man. The two last-named designations have, no doubt, been chosen because one of the most salient characters of the malady consists in the appearance in the tissues of the diseased animal, of miliary nodosities, which, after having during a short period of growth attained a certain volume, degenerate, becoming caseous and calcareous. These nodosities differ from other analogous productions, inasmuch as they are capable of being transmitted by inoculation to nearly all the domesticated animals, and their trans- mission gives rise to the production of new nodosities, tvhich, analogous to those from luhich they were derived, may in their turn be successfully inoculated. Conformably with these characteristics, we might consider the designation of Tuberculosis panzootica contagiosa as being the best of all those enumerated ; though it may be remarked that if the nodosity is really the essential alteration in this disease, it is not the only one, and therefore is not the characteristic or pathognomonic lesion. So that although, from an absolute point of view, we give the preference to the last- named designation, we will nevertheless employ the term Tuber- culosis {Phtisie pommelibre, Perlsucht), because of its simplicity. The great number and diversity of the names given to this disease might lead us to suppose that it has often been con- founded with others affections which have only a superficial resemblance to it, or have certain characters common with it. To give only one example of this confusion, it may be mentioned that, until within the last few years. Echinococcus kysts have been mistaken for Tuberculous neoplasms, although so long ago as 1821, Tscheulin had drawn attention to the differences existing between these two lesions ; and the same error has been made with regard to the Cysticacus cellulosus. Apart from these grosser errors in diagnosis, there occurred others more excusable; for besides those parasitic creatures visible to the naked eye, there were others of microscopical dimensions which could also develop in the domesticated animals, and cause the formation of nodules and nodosities which,