The Science of Cows: Tuberculosis,Research and the State in the United Kingdom,1890–1914

See Broch T. D. , Robert Koch: A life in medicine and bacteriology (Washington, D.C., 1999).

See Latour B. , Science in action (Milton Keynes, 1987).

“Is tuberculosis of man transmissible to cattle?”, Journal of comparative pathology and therapeutics [hereafter cited as JCPT], xiv (1901), 259–60.

Smith F. B. , The retreat of tuberculosis 1850–1950 (London, 1988), 175–6.

Southey R. , The nature and affinities of tubercle (London, 1867), p. vii; Fleming G. , “The transmissibility of tuberculosis”, British and foreign medico-chirurgical review, Oct. 1874, 461.

Creighton C. , Bovine tuberculosis in man (London, 1881), 6, 5, 101–2; Delepine S. , “Tuberculosis and the milk supply”, Journal of meat and milk hygiene, i (1911), 545.

See Wilkinson L. , Animals and disease: An introduction to the history of comparative medicine (Cambridge, 1992).

British medical journal [hereafter cited as BMJ], 1888, i, 848.

Lancet, 1890, i, 973.

Behrend H. , Cattle tuberculosis and tuberculosis meat (London, 1893), 8, 32.

Worboys M. , Spreading germs: Disease theories and medical practice in Britain, 1865–1900 (Cambridge, 2000), 210.

See Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the effect of food derived from tuberculous animals on human health (London, 1895).

See Third report, Royal Commission into the origin and nature of the cattle plague, P[arliamentary] P[apers], 1866, xxii [hereafter cited as Third report].

Worboys , Spreading germs (ref. 11), 27.

There is a vast literature on science in medicine: See Cooter R. Sturdy S. , “Science, scientific management, and the transformation of medicine in Britain, c. 1870–1950”, History of science, xxxvi (1998), 421–66; Lawrence C. , “Incommunicable knowledge: Science, technology and clinical art in Britain 1850–1914”, Journal of contemporary history, xx (1985), 503–20; Pickstone J. V. , “Ways of knowing: Towards a historical sociology of science, technology and medicine”, The British journal for the history of science, xxvi (1993), 433–58; Warner J. H. , “The history of science and the sciences of medicine”, Osiris, x (1995), 164–94.

BMJ, 1895, i, 937.

Klein E. , Micro-organisms and disease (London, 1884).

Worboys , Spreading germs (ref. 11), 231, 178–80.

Report of the medical officer of the Local Government Board (London, 1891), Appendix b, 255–66; idem (London, 1893), Appendix b, 147–200.

Worboys M. , “Germ theories of disease and British veterinary medicine 1860–1890”, Medical history, xxxv (1991), 308–27.

Vernon K. , “Pus, sewage, beer and milk: Microbiology in Britain 1870–1940”, History of science, xxviii (1990), 289–325, p. 296.

Lancet, 1881, i, 51–54, 99–102.

Worboys , Spreading germs (ref. 11), 45, 46–49.

Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the effect of food derived from tuberculous animals, Part iii, Inquiry iii, 172–3, 109–10.

Gradmann C. , “Robert Koch and the pressures of scientific research: Tuberculosis and tuberculin”, Medical history, xlv (2001), 1–32, pp. 5, 6–7.

Worboys , “Germ theories” (ref. 20), 314–15; BMJ, 1869, ii, 274.

Report of the medical officer of the Local Government Board (London, 1883), 63–71; idem, (1893), Appendix b, 141–6.

BMJ, 1895, i, 937.

Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the effect of food derived from tuberculosis animals, Part ii, Inquiry ii, 10–31.

Ibid., Parti, 10–15, 16–17.

Ibid., Part iii, Inquiry iii.

Report of the Royal Commission into the administrative procedures for controlling danger to man through the use of food of the meat and milk of tuberculosis animals, PP, 1898, xlix, 2.

BMJ, 1901, ii, 190–1.

Smith , Retreat of tuberculosis (ref. 4), 178.

Gradmann , “Robert Koch” (ref. 25), 21.

It was only in 1904 that Koch told the German commission on tuberculosis that his views had been misinterpreted: Public Record Office, Kew [PRO]: Translation, FD 22/8.

Lancet, 1901, ii, 217.

Public health, xii (1899/1900), 706–8, 714–17.

PRO: Board of Agriculture to Local Government Board, MH 20/5; Report of the medical officer of the Local Government Board (London, 1903), p. xxix.

Lancet, 1901, ii, 216.

Ibid.; Vernon , “Pus, sewage, beer and milk” (ref. 21), 293.

See Geison G. , Michael Foster and the Cambridge school of physiology (Princeton, 1978).

See Jones J. , “Science, utility and the second city of the Empire: The sciences and especially the medical sciences at Liverpool University, 1881–1925” (Ph.D. diss., University of Manchester, 1989); PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, FD 21/1–3.

Second report, Royal Commission into the relations of human and animal tuberculosis , PP, 1907, xxxviii [hereafter cited as Second report], 42.

Wilson G. , “The Brown Animal Sanatory Institution”, Journal of hygiene, lxxxii (1979), 155–76, pp. 158, 170.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 6 Nov. 1901, FD 22/1.

PRO: “Report on modification experiments”, FD 22/9.

Cobbett Louis , “The results of 950 bacteriological examinations for diphtheria bacilli during an outbreak of diphtheria at Cambridge and Chesterton”, Journal of hygiene, i (1901), 228–59.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 15 Nov. 1902, 19 Oct. 1903, FD, 22/1.

See Cooter Sturdy , “Science, scientific management, and the transformation of medicine” (ref. 15); Sturdy S. , “The political economy of scientific medicine: Science, education and the transformation of medical practice in Sheffield, 1890–1922”, Medical history, xxxvi (1992), 125–59.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 27 Feb. 1905, 20 Apr. 1903, FD 22/1.

Report of the medical officer of the Local Government Board (London, 1906), 377–87.

Rosenkrantz B. , “The trouble with bovine tuberculosis”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, lix (1985), 155–75, pp. 157–60.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 27 Nov. 1905, FD 22/2.

Ravenel M. , “The intercommunicability of human and bovine tuberculosis”, JCPT, xv (1902), 113–23.

Final report of the Royal Commission into the relations of human and animal tuberculosis [hereafter cited as Final report], Part ii, Appendix, ii; PP, 1911, xliii, 7.

PRO: Dowson to Cobbett, 26 Mar. 1903, FD 22/7.

Second report, Part ii, Appendix, iii; PP, 1907, lvii, 46–47, 71.

Ibid., 1–20, 21–26, 30.

Royal Commission into the effect of food derived from tuberculous animals, Part ii, 47; Ravenel , “Intercommunicability of human and bovine tuberculosis” (ref. 55), 114–23.

Veterinary record [hereafter cited as VR], 27 July 1901, 45.

PRO: Steegmann to Cobbett, 20 May 1903, 9 June 1903, FD 22/7; PRO; Martin S. , “Memorandum on the results of experiments”, 10 June 1905, FD 22/6.

Smith , Retreat of tuberculosis (ref. 4), 182; Journal of hygiene, i (1901), 4–45; PRO: Dowson to Cobbett, 11 May 1903, FD 22/7.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 26 Jan. 1903, FD 22/1.

PRO: Steegmann to Cobbett, 11 Oct. 1905, FD 22/6; Final report, Part ii, Appendix, iii, 1–19, 297–340.

Although Cobbett went to Sheffield to take up the professorship of pathology, he held the post for a year before returning to a junior post at Cambridge.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 27 Feb. 1905, FD 22/2; “Modification experiments”, 56, FD 22/9.

PRO: Foster M. , “Memorandum on post-mortem records”, 1903, FD 22/7.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 19 Oct. 1903, FD 22/1.

Second report, Part ii, Appendix, i; PP, 1907, xxxviii, 7.

PRO: “Note on method of procedure with the virus of tuberculosis lung cases”, Mar. 1904, FD 22/7; Second report, Part ii, Appendix, iii, 30–31.

VR, 12 Dec. 1908, 386.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 15 Nov. 1902, 27 July 1903, FD 22/1; ibid., 25 Apr. 1904, FD 22/2.

Ibid. , 7 Dec. 1903, FD 22/1; ibid., 15 Feb. 1904, 28 Mar. 1904, FD 22/2.

Second report, Part ii, Appendix, i, 8; PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 28 Mar. 1904, FD 22/2.

Ibid., 16 Jan. 1905, FD 22/2.

McFadyean J. , “Further experiments regarding the immunisation of cattle against tuberculosis”, JCPT, xv (1902), 60–71.

PRO: Steegmann to Cobbett, 3 Apr. 1906, FD 22/7; PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 3 June 1907, FD 22/3.

Ibid. , 18 Nov. 1907, 10 Feb. 1908, FD 22/3; Final report, Part ii, Appendix, iii, 267.

Penberthy J. , “Veterinary aspect of the tuberculosis problem”, JCPT, xx (1907), 285–300, p. 287; VR, 7 Mar. 1903, 560–2; Third report, Royal Commission into the relations of human and animal tuberculosis, PP, 1909, xlix, 81.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 4 Apr. 1910, 25 July 1910, FD 22/3.

London County Council, Report of the Public Health Committee for the year 1902 (London, 1902), p. iv.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 7 Mar. 1904, FD 22/2.

BMJ, 1904, ii, 1596.

Interim report of the Royal Commission into the relations of human and animal tuberculosis , PP, 1904, xxxix, 6.

Lancet, 1904, i, 1580.

BMJ , 1904, i, 1327; ibid. , 1904, ii, 353; ibid., 1905, i, 894.

London County Council, Report of the Public Health Committee for the year 1905 (London, 1906), 76.

Report of the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board (London, 1905–6), p. xiv.

Martin , “Memorandum” (ref. 62).

PRO: Memorandum, 6 Dec. 1905, FD 22/9.

Atkins P. , “White poison: The social consequences of milk consumption”, Social history of medicine, v (1992), 207–27, pp. 218–22.

The London County Council in recommending the creation of public slaughter houses and compulsory meat inspection passed a resolution calling for “the report of the Royal Commission … [to] be issued at the earliest possible date”: Report of the Public Health Committee for the year 1906 (London, 1907), 78.

Dwork D. , War is good for babies and other young children: A history of the infant and child welfare movement in England 1898–1918 (London, 1987), 83.

Second report, 13, 68–70; ibid., Part ii, Appendix, iv, p. xxx.

Ibid., Part ii, Appendix, iii, 221–4.

VR, 9 Feb. 1907, 304; BMJ, 1907, i, 330–2.

“Human and bovine tuberculosis”, Medical officer, 9 Jan. 1909, 525.

BMJ , 1908, ii, 1201; VR , 9 Jan. 1909, 460; Veterinary journal, lxviii (1912), 550.

VR , 12 June 1909, 838; BMJ, 1911, ii, 697.

Ibid., 629.

Final report, 3, 4–29, 36–37, 40–41.

Report of the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board (London, 1911–2), pp. xlii–xliv.

Lancet , 1895, i, 1066; VR, 27 Apr. 1895, 594.

Latour B. , “The costly ghastly kitchen”, in Cunningham A. Williams P. (eds), The laboratory revolution in medicine (Cambridge, 1992), 295–303.

BMJ, 1911, ii, 180.

Second report, Part ii, Appendix, iii, 1–20, 21–26, 30; Final report, Part ii, supplementary vol.; PP, 1913, xl.

PRO: Minutes, Royal Commission on tuberculosis, 2 Nov. 1908, FD 22/3.

BMJ, 1911, ii, 697.

Report of the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board (London, 1910), 232–9.

See Departmental Committee on Tuberculosis, PP, 1912–13, xlviii. For the Medical Research Council, see Austoker J. Bryder L. (eds), Historical perspectives on the role of the Medical Research Council (Oxford, 1989).

Journal of meat and milk hygiene, i (1911), 477.

“The Royal Commission on Tuberculosis”, Medical officer, 6 Feb. 1909, 608.