ease germ.

By far the most important of diseases that may be transmitted
directly from animal to man through a milk supply is tuberculosis,
but in addition to this, foot and mouth disease (aphthous fever in
children), Malta fever, and acute enteric troubles have also been
traced to a similar source of infection.

The most important specific diseases that are disseminated through
subsequent infection of the milk are typhoid fever, diphtheria,
scarlet fever, and cholera, but, of course, the possibility exists
that any disease germ capable of living and thriving in milk may be
spread in this way. In addition to these diseases that are caused by
the introduction of specific organisms (the causal organism of
scarlet fever has not yet been definitely determined), there are a
large number of more or less illy defined troubles of an intestinal
character that occur especially in infants and young children that
are undoubtedly attributable to the activity of micro-organisms that
gain access to milk during and subsequent to the milking, and which
produce changes in milk before or after its ingestion that result
in the formation of toxic products.

=Tuberculosis.= This disease is by far the most important bacterial
malady that affects man and beast. In man, it assumes a wide variety
of phases, ranging from consumption, tuberculosis of the lungs,
which is by far the most common type, to scrofulous glands in the
neck, cold abscesses, hip-joint, and bone diseases, as well as
affection of the bowels. These various manifestations are all
produced by the inroads of the specific organism, Bacillus
tuberculosis. The bovine, as well as swine, fowls, and other
warm-blooded animals, are also affected with similar diseases. In
man, the importance of the malady is recognized when it appears that
fully one-seventh of the human race die of this scourge. In cattle,
the disease is equally widespread, particularly in those countries
where live stock has been intensively developed. In the northern
countries of Europe, such as Denmark, Germany, England, France, and
the Netherlands, as well as in Canada, and this country, this
disease has been most widely disseminated. This has been occasioned,
in large measure, because of the exceedingly insidious nature of the
disease in cattle, thereby permitting interchange of such diseased
stock without the disease being recognized. Tuberculosis is found
more abundantly in this country in dairy than in beef s