Tuberculosis and Tuberculin Tests in Subhuman Primates *

The incidence of tuberculosis has always been high among monkeys and anthropoid apes in captivity in zoological gardens and research colonies. More recently it has been recognized that the disease is a serious menace both to the welfare of the animals and to that of human contacts. About 25 per cent of more than 2000 monkeys and anthropoids used by the Laboratory of Physiology of the Yale University School of Medicine during the past 10 years have been infected with this disease.1" This paper deals with its incidence and diagnosis in the colony, and with the efforts toward its elimination through the use of tuberculin tests and other measures. Much has been published since the beginning of the century concerning tuberculosis in subhuman primates. This present series is, however, larger and contains a higher percentage of tuberculin-tested animals which have come to autopsy than any previous one. It represents also the findings in a colony of monkeys maintained for research purposes other than the study of tuberculosis, and under much the same conditions as obtain in such colonies elsewhere. For these reasons the material may be valuable.