Milk and Tuberculosis

The work of Branson (1905) gave some indication of the incidence of abdomi^ tuberculosis in children which was for the most part the result of infection by th^ strain. At this time it was known that there was a high incidence of tuberculosis in milkn1; cows. For instance, 46-8 per cent of cows slaughtered in London in 1901 shoW?t lesions (King 1901) a figure which dropped to 33 per cent for the years 1918-27. (You^: 1929). Even in the early 1940's, however, figures from various slaughterhouses show'C; an incidence of over 40 per cent in milking cows (Francis 1947). During the period from 1930 to 1963 the incidence of bovine tuberculosis infecti0'' in children and adults, as indicated by the incidence of death from tuberculosis 0 the intestines and of joints, showed a reduction (see Table 2).