The object of this paper is to report the results of a study of the von Pirquet cutaneous test for tuberculosis on a series of children who have died and on whom careful necropsies have been performed. It is felt that in this way alone a conclusive judgment as to the value of the von Pirquet reaction in making a positive diagnosis of the presence or absence of tuberculosis can be acquired, for postmortem examination offers the only absolute verification of the diagnosis of tuberculosis.
Many investigations of this reaction have been made in this country on children from infancy through school age, in which the results of the test, whether positive or negative, have been confirmed by painstaking physical examination, or by means of the Roentgen ray—very exceptionally by the determination of tubercle bacilli. The discovery of tubercle bacilli, of course, must be accepted as indubitable evidence