Heavy salting of meats has been thought to kill the bacillus in a month. After 15 days in salt the microbe failed to kill rabbits, but still killed the Guinea pig, whereas after 30 days it killed neither (Galtier). The fact that salted meats are always unequally impregnated in different parts, renders this extremely unreliable and more of a snare than a guide.
The action of chemical disinfectants varies not only with the agent but also with the medium in which the bacillus is found. In simple liquid media (bouillon) the following results were obtained:
| Parts per 1000. | Killed in. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Carbolic Acid | 50:1000 | 30″ | (Yersin) |
| „ „ | 10:1000 | 1′ | „ |
| Alcohol (absolute) | 1000:1000 | 5′ | „ |
| Ether | 1000:1000 | 10′ | „ |
| Iodoform ether | 10:1000 | 5′ | „ |
| Mercuric chloride | 1:1000 | 10′ | „ |
| Salicylic acid | 2.5:1000 | 6 hrs. | „ |
| Anilin water Saturated | |||
| Thymol | 3:1000 | 3 hrs. | (Yersin) |
| Formalin vapor | 60:1000 | 40 hrs. | (Murray) |
| Sulphurous Acid (Sulphur 1 oz. to cubic metre) | 14 hrs. | (Vallin). | |
The following agents proved ineffective: Saturated aqueous solution of creosote, or of B-naphthol, of naphthalin, of potassium iodide, of potassium bromide:—bromine water, iodine water (1:500), iodoform solution or vapor, vapor of oil of turpentine.
ACCESSORY CAUSES OF TUBERCULOSIS IN ANIMALS.
While recognizing that in the absence of the tubercle bacillus there can be no tuberculosis yet we must not ignore the fact that many conditions of the animal system and its environment contribute largely to the propagation of the disease on the one hand, or to hinder its progress on the other. None of these conditions can call the germ into being de novo, but in its presence, they greatly favor its diffusion or even its malignancy. Like any other seed, this bacillus requires a suitable soil and favorable climate, to bring out its most destructive development. In striking the balance, we have to guard against the error of so many, who would attribute to the germ alone the deadly results and who assume that these should be the same under all conditions, and the opposite error no less prevalent, that ascribes the evil to the conditions, and holds that without these the germ would be harmless.
Hereditary Predisposition. Racial Vulnerability. Before the discovery of the specific bacillus, when as yet tuberculosis was held to result from a constitutional weakness, or cachexia in which deterioration of cells was held to be the main factor, the disease was held to be mainly hereditary, and its every day transmission in the line of descent, and the increasing mortality to extinction of given families were confidently appealed to in support of the doctrine. Now, however, we recognize that congenital tuberculosis in man or beast is very exceptional, and that the morbid process almost invariably takes its start from the germ implanted after birth. In Saxony when the tuberculous cows were 16.5 per cent. tuberculous calves were but .2 per cent., though the latter had been fattened on the milk of the former. In Munich but two calves were found tuberculous in 400,000 killed, and in Lyons but five in a similar number. Up to the present the number of calves recorded as tuberculous at birth does not exceed seventy.
That the young almost always contracted the disease, only after birth, virtually disposes of the alleged heredity of the tuberculosis but it by no means antagonizes the heredity of the racial vulnerability. As man, cattle, swine and Guinea pigs show a much greater vulnerability than the carnivora in general, so certain families in each of these genera show a more decided susceptibility to tuberculosis under similar conditions than do certain other families. This goes far to explain the appearance of tuberculosis, in certain lines of blood, and its advance to the extinction of the family, while under no better environment, other families can count on a practical immunity. In the Burden herd of Jerseys in 1877, I condemned eleven animals, verifying my diagnosis by necropsies, and found to my surprise that I had taken every representative, even the grades, of a given family, and left all the pure bred members of a second family untouched. Both families had mingled freely in the pastures and yards, yet the second family furnished no cases of tuberculosis then nor for many years afterward. The case is all the more striking that the non-tuberculous family gave the largest yield of milk and might have been expected to run down rather than the other on account of this drain.
Close Buildings. Lack of Ventilation. Air rendered impure by being breathed again and again, predisposes strongly to tuberculosis, and has been even looked upon as the sole cause (Macormac). Everywhere city dairy cows, kept in confined, close buildings, suffer severely (6 to 20 per cent. and upward); in Berlin 75 per cent. (Ostertag); in Denmark 61 per cent. (Bang), while in the same districts country cows are comparatively immune (often 1 to 2 per cent.), and steers raised in the open air still less (0.02 per cent. for our Plains cattle). For the slighter cases of tuberculosis in man and beast, life in a pure open air, day and night, in a genial climate, gives the best hope of improvement or recovery. In the Burden Jersey herd above referred to, animals condemned in spring as tuberculous, were turned out to pasture during the summer where they maintained an appearance of robust health, yet when returned to the barns in fall they fell off rapidly, so that some had to be helped to rise in the stall. “The stabled cow, the tame rabbit, the monkey, the caged lion, tiger or elephant are almost invariably cut off by scrofulous affection” (Aitken). It has long been noticed that sailors sleeping in close spaces (Bryson, Parkes), soldiers confined to close stone barracks even in the tropics (Parkes), suffer much more than the officers in more spacious rooms (Clark). Monks and nuns (two-thirds of the deaths, Leudet) occupying confined cells, and the inmates of prisons (four times the average outside, Baer) have shown an extraordinary prevalence of tuberculosis and attendant mortality. While this can be attributed mainly to the preservation and concentration of the bacillus in such places, a considerable allowance must be made for the impure and rebreathed air.
Dark, Foul, Damp Stables. Dark stables are usually close, dirty and damp as well, and all these conditions alike conduce to tuberculosis. Darkness hinders the development of organic coloring matter in living bodies, whether chlorophyll in plants or hæmoglobin in the blood of animals. Hæmoglobin is the main oxygen carrier in the blood, and in case of its deficiency the tissues are not properly ærated. The result is as if the inhaled air contained little oxygen, so that darkness further intensifies the evil of rebreathed, deoxygenated air. The extraordinary mortality from tubercle among prisoners, monks, nuns and miners serves to further accentuate this conclusion.