3. History

Tuberculosis affects warm- and cold-blooded animals and it is estimated that it has been around for more than 3 million years [10]. The disease in cattle was first observed by the Spaniard farmer, Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella in Northern Italy in the year 14 AD [11]. In 1881, Robert Koch discovered Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tubercle bacillus) as the cause of tuberculosis in humans and in 1882, established the connection between human and animal tuberculosis through the observation that consumption of contaminated cow's milk led to infection. In 1898, Theobald Smith identified M. bovis as a different species from M. tuberculosis. The first compulsory milk pasteurization law was enacted in UK in 1908 following the research that linked consumption of raw milk to extrapulmonary tuberculosis; two French scientists Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin developed the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine for immunizing humans against tuberculosis, by attenuating M. bovis through subculture. The vaccine was first used in 1921 [12]. In 1890, Robert Koch extracted tuberculin from the tubercle

Diseases Caused by Bacteria in Cattle: Tuberculosis DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.82051

bacilli. The extract was initially tried as a vaccine, but later shown to have diagnostic potential to detect infected animals. The tuberculin skin test for animals was thereafter developed [10]. The development of the skin test for humans was then carried out by Von Pirquet and Mantoux in 1907–1908 [13]. In the developed world, bovine TB eradication programs involving herd testing and culling of reactors and pasteurization of milk has largely eliminated the spread of bovine TB. The disease, however, remains a serious public health problem in many developing countries [14].
