In the summary appended to the report we read: "Tuberculous matter in milk is exceptionally active in its operation upon animals fed either with milk or with dairy produce derived from it. No doubt the largest part of the tuberculosis which man obtains through his food is by means of milk containing tuberculous matter." That the Commissioners were alive to the great importance of this means of spreading disease is further shown by the following significant paragraph: "In regard to milk, we are aware of the preference by English people for drinking cow's milk raw, a practice attended by danger on account of possible contamination by pathogenic organisms." The Commissioners spared no pains in endeavouring to throw light upon the important question they were appointed to report upon, and five years elapsed before they published the results of their inquiries. A decade ago the opinions expressed by them represented the current opinions of the leading bacteriological authorities in scientific circles at home and abroad, and these opinions were gradually filtering down to the general public, which is so conservative in clinging to traditions and popular delusions, when, like a flash out of the blue, the bacteriological Jove, Professor Robert Koch, hurled his thunderbolt into the arena, and at the British Congress on Consumption, held in London in the summer of 1901, declared his belief that bovine and human tuberculosis were distinct diseases. The significance of such a challenge to current scientific opinion, and its far-reaching influence if proved to be correct, was quickly appreciated by the distinguished audience who had gathered to hear what so great an authority as Dr. Robert Koch had to say on consumption and its distribution. The vital question raised by the original discoverer of the tubercle bacillus is still the subject of discussion, experimental inquiry, and much controversy, and we cannot here attempt to discuss the _pros_ and _cons_ for the acceptance or rejection of this new theory concerning the character of tuberculosis. It would, however, be regrettable in the extreme if the publication of this opinion were to encourage dairy authorities to relax in the slightest the efforts now so tardily being made by them to protect their dairy produce and ensure its safety for food-supply.