I have absolutely no clue about where my dreams come from.
Last night I had a dream (that might have been set in the 19th or even the 18th century – it’s a little vague on that point) in which I was in a shop and someonme brought in two smallish wheels of cheese. They told me not to eat them, but to get them tested, becayuse they thought the cows they came from had tuberculosis. They also brought in some pieces of cheese, and the implication was that these were OK, although after I ate them I wasn’t so sure.
Where the hell did this come from>? I’ve had nothingh to do with TB, or with cows, or with cheese. It also raises a stack of questions:
1.) Can cows even get TB? The same kind as people?
2.) Can TB be carried by cheese? Pepper informs me that TB bacillus is carried by body fluids, but doubts that it would suervive the cheesemaking rocess. I don’t see why not.
3.) How would you test cheese for TB? Do you look for bacilli?
4.) Did they know about any of this in the 19th century? How about the 18th?
5.) How/what would you test for before the Germ Theory?
If you don’t know by now that dreams ramble and mix everything you know of, then you are in for a lot of wasted time analyzing your dreams. Freud was wrong, we know that now. Time to move on.
Mycobacterium bovis, the bacillus responsible for TB infection in cattle, can also infect humans. In general, it’s something that’s carefully watched for in herds of cattle, because one infected animal can spread it to the others. Sick cows aren’t moneymakers.
This page describes bovine TB (careful, graphic pictures of the disease). You’re at greater risk of infection if you’re in direct contact with infected cattle, but because the animals are screened regularly for the disease, the meat and milk supply aren’t really a worry. Still, stick to pasteurized milk products. It’s just safer.
“Cheese From Tubercular Cows” was the slogan initially adopted by the California Cheese Board for their nationwide ad campaign, but for some reason sales went down.
Rural folks sometimes test positive for TB anti-bodies on those pin-prick TB tests as a result of drinking unpasteurized milk. My mother is one, my ex is another. They both grew up on farms in the middle of nowhere and had milk practically straight from the cow. I have no idea if either ate unpasteurized cheese.
I believe the positive test results from the M. bovis bacterium (a member of the M. tuberculosis compex group).
