Bulletin 65. 
April, 18q4. 
Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station # 
VETERINARY DIVISION. 
TUBERCULOSIS 
IN RELATION TO 
Animal Industry and Public Health. 
BY- 
JAMES LAW. 
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY, 
ITHACA, N. Y. 
1894. ORGANIZATION. 
BOARD OF CONTROL: 
THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 
STATION COUNCIL. 
President, Jacob Goui/d Schurman. 
Hon. A. D. White, - - - Trustee of the University. 
Hon. John B. DuTCher, - President State Agricultural Society. 
I. P. Roberts, .... Professor of Agriculture. 
G. C. Caldwell, ----- Professor of Chemistry. 
James Law, - - - - Professor of Veterinary Science 
A. N. Prentiss, ----- Professor of Botany 
J. H. Comstock, '- Professor of Entomology 
L. H. Bailey, ----- Professor of Horticulture 
H. H. Wing, - - - - Asst. Professor of Dairy Husbandry 
G. F. Atkinson, - - - Asst. Professor of Cryptogamic Botany 
OFFICERS OF THE STATION. 
I. P. Roberts, - Director. 
Henry H. Wing, - - Deputy Director and Secretary. 
E. L. Williams, - - - - Treasurer. 
ASSISTANTS. 
M. V. Slingerland, - Entomology. 
Geo. C. Watson, ----- Agriculture. 
G. W. Cavanaugh, ----- Chemistry. 
E. G. Lodeman, - - - - Horticulture. 
Offices of the Director and Deputy Director, 20 Morrill Hall. 
Those desiring this Bulletin sent to friends will please send us the names 
of the parties. 
BULLETINS OF 1894. 
62. The Japanese Plums in North America. 
63. Co-operative Test of Sugar Beets. 
64. On Certain Grass-Eating Insects. 
65. Tuberculosis in Relation to Animal Industry and Public 
Health. TUBERCULOSIS IN RELATION TO ANIMAL 
INDUSTRY AND PUBLIC HEALTH. 
ITS prevalence; and relative IMPORTANCE. 
Tuberculosis is so extensively prevalent and proves such a 
veritable scourge throughout the civilized world that no disease 
is so deserving of close and accurate study, or of the enforcement 
of effective measures for its suppression. Cholera, yellow fever 
and small pox, which occasionally invade our territory, creating 
universal terror and dismay, claim but few victims as compared 
with this ever-present, universally devastating plague. These 
other plagues are quick, severe and fatal, it is true, but for this 
very reason they can be promptly recognized, and checked and 
even stamped out, whereas tuberculosis is equivocal and under- 
hand in its method, slow and uncertain in its progress, and on 
this account escapes recognition and proves by far the most 
deadly of any single disease attacking the human family. The 
average ratio of deaths from tuberculosis to the total mortality is 
14 per cent., or one death in every eight, while under special con- 
ditions it rises to one in three, as in the Marquesas Islands, or 
even one in two, as in some of our Indian reservations. Tuber- 
culosis may be classed with “the pestilence that walketh in 
darkness, “ while the the three other diseases named are like “ the 
destruction that wasteth at noonday.” But the deaths from tuber- 
culosis being constant and uniform, people accept them as inevi- 
table and fold their idle hands with true Mohamedan fatalism 
instead of boldly exposing the hidden deathtrap, and cutting 
short its destructive work. 
If the 5,490 deaths from tuberculosis which occur every year in 
the city of New York could be brought together in an epidemic 
lasting but one week, no small pox, cholera nor yellow fever 
scare would approach the panic which would thus be created, for 106 
Bulletin 65. 
when did all three diseases together create such mortality in this 
city ? Nay, if we take the whole civilized world and compare with 
the tuberculosis mortality, all the accumulated deaths from war, 
famine, plague, cholera, yellow fever and small pox we find that 
the latter are comparatively very insignificant. Yet tuberculosis 
like every germ disease is absolutely preventible, and is allowed 
to continue its career of death only because of reprehensible 
ignorance and criminal indifference. 
Its Prevalence in the Power Animals. 
Few if any diseases maintain a sway over a more numerous 
genera of animals than tuberculosis. Among the domesticated 
animals cattle are perhaps the most susceptible, but chickens, 
guineapigs, rabbits, swine and goats become victims almost if not 
quite as easily. Some have thought that dogs, cats, sheep and 
horses are exempt, but when inoculated with tuberculous material 
these all contract the affection readily enough. The fact that 
they do not contract it in such numbers in the usual way is prob- 
ably due in part to the greater amount of outdoor life which they 
enjoy, also to the fact that they have more exercise which secures 
for them a better developed and higher conditioned muscular 
system, and a full stock of constitutional vigor. After making- 
all these allowances, however, it must be granted that these four 
classes of animals enjoy a native intolerance to this disease to 
which the first six classes mentioned are comparative strang- 
ers. 
Among the less domesticated animals which contract tubercu- 
losis may be named caged apes, lions, kangaroos, deer, elk, 
gazelle, antelope, birds, and in addition the rats, mice and other 
vermin of our houses and barns. All must, therefore, be con- 
sidered as possible bearers and disseminators of the infection and 
no such animal (indeed, scarcely any animal) can be left out of 
account in any systematic attempt to root out the disease. Some, 
however, are justly held to contribute more than others to the 
maintenance of the affection, and in this sense, in addition to man 
himself, we must consider as preeminently beaters of this dis- 
ease cattle, fowls and pigs. 
Accurate statistics are wanting to give the rates of tuberculous 
animals in our herds, as we have no systematic professional Tuberculosis. 
107 
inspection of live animals and of those killed for human food. 
Even in the large cities of Europe when such inspections are 
obligatory, in the case of carcasses, the data given are so variable 
as to suggest the acceptance of different standards in the various 
cities and countries. Thus tuberculous cattle are said to number: 
In Bavaria 0.225 per cent. (Goring), in Augsburg 0.26 per cent. 
(Adam), in Baden 0.2 per cent. (Eydtin), in France 0.5 per cent. 
(Arloing), in Belgium 0.4 per cent. (Van Hertsen), in Paris 6 per 
cent. (Friedberger and Frohner), in Holland 20 per cent. (Schmidt), 
in Pommerania and Bomberg 50 per cent. (Schanz, Albrecht), 
at Hildesheim, Hanover, 60 to 70 per cent. (Haarstick), in Leip- 
sic 20 per cent. (Rieck), in Edinburgh 26 per cent. (Cope, McFad- 
yean). American figures given by the Bureau of Animal Indus- 
try are for Baltimore (mostly cows) 2.5 to 3.5 per cent, and for the 
packing centers (among 2,273,547 mostly steers) 0.02 per cent. 
It must be noted that the data from Baltimore is somewhat too 
favorable for city cows, as the cows were largely from infected 
dairies, where the more rapidly fatal lung plague carried off many 
before time had been allowed for the development of tuberculosis, 
and as the vacancies were speedily filled by fresh cows from coun- 
try districts, the results give the ratio for country herds rather 
than the normal proportion for the city. The splendid showing 
for the steers must also be qualified by the remark that the fat 
and apparently healthy are alone sent to the large distant market 
while the unthrifty are held back lest they should spoil the sale. 
Steers further largely escape on account of their out-door life 
with less opportunity for infection, and because they are, as a 
rule, killed at three years old and under, and tuberculosis becomes 
more and more prevalent with the advancing age of the stock. 
In a large aggregate number of German abattoirs, cows suffered 
in ratio of 6.9 per cent., oxen 3.6 per cent., bulls 2.6 per cent., 
and calves and yearlings 1 per cent. In Eeipsic, tuberculous 
cows were 26 per cent., oxen 19.5 per cent., bulls 15.4 per cent., 
and calves 9.3 per cent. 
In infected breeding and dairy herds in New York, consisting 
largely of mature cows I have found a maximum of 98 per cent, 
and a minimum of 5 per cent. Again in healthy country dis- 
tricts I have found hundreds of cows in adjoining herds without 
a trace of tuberculosis among them. 108 
Bulletin 65. 
Tuberculosis Contagious. 
In the middle ages tuberculosis in animals was recognized as 
contagious and laws were made against the use of the affected 
carcasses as human food, which remain in force in Italy and 
Spain to the present day. In the 16th century the disease was 
confounded with syphilis and at the end of the 18th century with 
glanders, blunders which, however untenable, show the strong 
conviction that the malady was contagious. The propagation by 
contagion in herd was recorded in Germany by Ruhling (1774), 
and Krunitz (1787), and more recently by Spinola, Zannger and 
others. In France the same is claimed by Fromage, Huzard, 
Lafosse, Dupont, and Cruzel. 
It must be allowed, however, that in the first half of the pres- 
ent century, the manifest tendency of the disease to run in fam- 
ilies, and to develop under special unwholesome conditions of 
life, served to weaken the belief in contagion, and in Central and 
Western Europe such belief had become practically extinct among 
medical men, when their attention was recalled to the subject by 
the successful inoculations of tuberculosis on rabbits and guinea- 
pigs, by Villemin,in 1865. The subject was taken upon all sides 
by incredulous experimenters and for a time a keen polemic war- 
fare raged, but slowly the stern logic of constantly accumulating 
and unanswerable facts compelled all candid observers to accept 
the doctrine of contagion. 
The Germ. Bacillus Tuberculosis. 
An even fuller demonstration came in 1882, when Robert Koch, 
of Berlin, demonstrated the existence of the tubercle bacillus, 
and showed that the disease could be produced with equal cer- 
tainty by inoculating with the substance of a tubercle from the 
ox’s lung, or with a pure culture of the germ grown on pepton- 
ized gelatine, apart from the living body. Before publishing his 
discovery Koch demonstrated the presence of the bacillus in the 
expectoration or tubercle of over 100 cases of consumption, and 
had successfully inoculated 472 subjects—guineapigs, rabbits, 
mice, rats, and cats, besides dogs, pigeons and chickens. The 
following are some of the characteristics of this germ : 
Form.—A delicate rod with rounded ends, 1.5 to 3.5 micromillimeter in 
length (about i-2sooth of an inch). They occur singly, or in pairs or chains Tuberculosis. 
109 
of three or four connected end to end. When cultivated on blood-serum 
the groups tend to form elongated rope-like colonies, having a waving or 
serpentine outline. 
Staining.—It is characteristic of this baccillus that it absorbs 
coloring matters very slowly and once stained retains its color 
with great tenacity. This enables the microscopist to distinguish 
this amid a mass of other microbes. The opaque particles in 
sputum or a section of the tubercle is stained by prolonged ex- 
posure to a warm alkaline solution of an aniline pigment; it is 
then bleached by a solution of nitric acid (1:3); it is then washed 
and slightly stained with a color which will contrast with the 
first; finally it is washed, mounted and examined under the 
microscope. The rod-like bacillus tuberculosis appears stained 
with the first color while the other bacteria, if any, are stained 
with the second. 
Biology, Life-history.—The bacillus tuberculosis lives mainly 
as a parasite in the animal body, but may be cultivated on the 
ordinary culture media containing 5 per cent, of glycerine and 
makes the best growth at ioo° to rc>2° Fah. A temperature of 
158° Fah. for ten minutes is fatal to it (Yersin). Unlike many 
bacilli this shows no spontaneous movement at any stage of its 
growth. Its development is slow in any medium, the earliest 
signs of growth being visible only after ten or fourteen days. 
Vitality.—As it has great power of resistance to the entrance 
of coloring fluids, so this germ can hold its own for a length of 
time against destructive agencies. It retains its vitality and in- 
fecting power for nine to ten months in dried expectoration (Koch, 
Schill, Fischer, DeThoma). In tuberculous cow’s lung, dried 
and pulverized, it infected Guinea pigs after 102 days. In putrid 
matter it infected after 43 days (Schill, Fischer) or 102 days (Ca- 
deac, Malet). It is not destroyed by gastric juice (Baumgarten, 
Fischer, Falk). 
In sputum it perishes in 20 hours in a 3 per cent, solution of 
carbolic acid in a saturated aqueous solution of salicylic acid or 
in saturated aniline water (Schill, Fischer) ; in five minutes by 
iodoform ether ; in ten minutes in sulphuric ether or mercuric 
chloride (1:1000) ; in three hours in thymol. It dies in a few 
hours in direct sunlight, and in five to seven days in diffuse day- 
light (Koch). In an ordinary room it gradually weakens but 
remains virulent for at least months (Sawiskey). 112 
Bulletin 65. 
While none of such accessory causes can generate tuberculosis 
in the absence of the bacillus, yet when that diseased seed is 
present, these conditions often serve to sway the balance toward 
its advancement and diffusion, or its restriction and suppression. 
A suitable soil and favorable climate is no less essential for the 
vigorous growth of the microscopic vegetable microbe, than for 
the Florida moss or the palm. 
Among the most efficient accessory causes may be named : 
a. Hereditary Predisposition. 
Consumption runs in families and it has long been supposed 
that this was essentially a family—that is, a hereditary disease. 
But as a matter of fact it is extremely rare to find the offspring 
tuberculous at birth or before. In many thousands of pregnant 
tuberculous cows killed in the slaughter-houses of Europe not 
more than ten tuberculous calves have been found. To the same 
effect is the fact that in calves under a year old, born of cows, six 
per cent, and upwards of which prove tuberculous, the ratio of 
tuberculosis is often below one per thousand. In Saxony with 
the ratio of tuberculous cattle 16.5 per cent, that of tuberculous 
calves was only 2 per 1000. At Eyons out of 400,000 calves 
slaughtered only 5 were found tuberculosis and at Munich out 
of 400,000 but 2 tuberculous. Again in such calves the tubercle 
is found in a very large proportion of cases in the bowels and 
adjacent glands suggesting infection after birth through the milk, 
rather than in the liver and lungs which would have been its 
natural seat if conveyed before birth through the blood. Not a 
few of the obstinate and fatal bowel diseises of sucking children 
and calves are in reality tuberculosis of the bowels induced by the 
infected milk. 
What runs in a family then is rarely hereditary disease :— 
it is in the great majority of cases only a hereditary suscep- 
tibility to the disease, tuberculosis. But it is none the less a fear- 
ful legacy, being often so potent that the disease attacks certain 
families as a matter of course, while other families can count on 
a practical immunity. In the human family this is notorious. In 
cattle it is no less remarkable. In the Burden herd of Jerseys in 
1877, I made examinations, and condemned eleven animals, veri- 
fying my diagnoses by examinations after death, and found to my Tuberculosis. 
113 
surprise that I had taken every representative of a given family, 
and left the pure bred members of the second family untouched. 
Both families had mingled freely in the pastures and yards, yet 
the second family furnished no tuberculous cases and remained 
sound from that time onward. 
b. Close Buildings, Lack of Ventilation 
Air rendered impure by repeated breathing is so favorable to 
the propagation of tuberculosis that it has been looked upon as 
the sole cause (Macormac). Though now certain that this can- 
not produce tuberculosis at all in the absence of the germ, yet it 
is such a potent accessory cause when the bacillus also is present, 
that its importance cannot be too highly appreciated. 
For the mild cases of tuberculosis in man life in the open air, 
day and night, in a genial climate with pure air affords one of the 
best grounds of hope of recovery or mitigation. In the Burden 
herd above referred to, animals condemned in the [spring spent 
the summer at pasture, with a general appearance of perfect 
health, yet, when returned to the barns in the fall, they fell off 
so that soon some of them had to be helped to rise in the stall. 
All the world over city dairy cows are notorious for tuberculosis. 
In Europe where the country cattle are affected in a ratio of i to 2 
per cent., those in the city dairies suffer to the extent of 6 to 20 
per cent, and upward. Of our plains and prairie steers the gov- 
ernment inspectors, at the abattoirs, condemned as tuberculous 
but 0.02 per cent., whereas of the city dairy cows, mostly recently 
from the country, they condemned 1.23 per cent. The ratio is 
1 steer to 60 cows, a most striking showing in favor of an open 
air life. 
c. Dark Stables. 
Dark stables are usually dirty and ill-ventilated, and as such, 
lower the general health of the inmates and strongly predispose 
them to tuberculosis. The darkness, however, acts indirectly in 
depriving the tissues of the body of their due supply of air. The 
formation of green pigment (chlorophyll) in plants, and that of 
red pigment in the blood globules are alike due to the action of 
light. In darkness both disappear. But the red globules of the 
blood are the bearers of oxygen to all parts of the body, and if 
these globules are deficient the whole body is denied its due 114 
Bulletin 65. 
aeration. The final result is as if the air contained little oxygen, 
in other words, as in the case of a close building without any 
means of renewing the air. 
d. Insufficient or Unwholesome Food. Overtaxing. 
Tack of food, and indigestible, or ihnutritious food, agree in 
producing practical starvation and weakness with increased sus- 
ceptibility to tuberculosis. Hence, this disease is the scourge o 
the half starved poor, and no less of the rich who abuse their 
digestive organs, and court chronic dyspepsia. So, too, in oui 
dairy herds the stimulating ration-for-milk, the warm drinking 
water, and warm atmosphere, together with the enforced rest in 
the stalls for months at a time,.and the clean, careful milking 
soliciting the gland to act to it's extreme capacity, all tend to a 
lowering of the general health,and an increased susceptibility. 
This sufficiently illustrates how the cow which has been made a 
milking machine, and which'to this end must produce a calf 
every year, becomes dangerously susceptible to any tubercle 
bacillus to which it may be exposed. We have developed most 
valuable qualities at the expense of hardihood, and we must take 
the consequence. The argument is not-'iihat we should part with 
acquired powers which give the animat its high value, but that 
we should recognize the attendant dangers and rigorously ex- 
clude the tubercle germ. 
e. Breeding too Young. 
Breeding of immature animals is a most fruitful accessory cause 
of tuberculosis as the demands made upon the system for further 
growth, for the nourishment of the unborn offspring, and later for 
the nursing of the calf, or for the dairy yield, undermine the 
strength and vigor. In different families of that marvelous dairy 
cow, the Jersey, this has been carried to such an extent that dis- 
credit has been thrown upon the whole breed as one especially 
prone to tuberculosis. 
f Inbreeding. High - breeding 
Inbred families of cattle are proverbially subject to tubercu- 
losis. This is due partly to a resulting constitutional weakness, 
which often shows itself in an increasing indisposition to breed to 
near relatives, though still fertile with strangers. More frequent- Tuberculosis. 
ly, it depends on the intensifying and fixing of personal and fam- 
ily characters. The susceptibility to the germ being equally 
strong in both parents becomes intensified in their common off- 
spring just as the beef or dairy characteristics are improved. 
Indeed, the qualities which make an animal valuable for the 
butcher or milkman are exactly such as favor tuberculosis. The 
germ of this disease lives by preference in the lymphatic system, 
either in the lymphatic glands or in the loose connective tissue 
forming the lymphatic networks leading to these glands. Now 
the breeds which are preeminent for early maturity, and rapid 
fattening, or for a high yield of milk are remarkable for their 
excess of connective tissue, as shown by the delicate mellow skin, 
and in the case of the Channel Island cattle by the unusually 
large lymphatic glands. This helps to explain why certain fam- 
ilies of beef-making cattle have been virtually ruined by tubercu- 
losis. Yet it would be equally wrong to abandon the improve- 
ment of our beef and of our milking breeds. The improvement 
already attained is essential to successful competition in the 
market, and prospective improvement will be no less essential in 
the future. The true and only real remedy is the extinction and 
exclusion of the bacillus of tubercle. 
g. Ill Health. 
All acute and chronic diseases leave the system weak, and with 
less power of resistance to other diseases. Above all we must 
fear long standing diseases which produce emaciation and weak- 
ness, fevers which interfere permanently with the blood-forming 
processes, diseases of the digestive organs, which hinder the 
requisite preparation and absorption of nutritive elements, and 
diseases of the lungs which form a raw or weakened surface on 
which the bacillus can grow without hindrance. Again the germ 
lives best in a slightly alkaline or neutral medium, and is weak- 
ened in the acid contents of the stomach during vigorous diges- 
tion. But in indigestion the contents may be too much lacking 
in acidity to prove hurtful to the germ, and the imperfectly di- 
gested morsels, enclosing the bacillus, may be passed on un- 
changed into the alkaline intestine, a field especially favorable to 
the development of tuberculosis. Again in the intervals between 
meals when the acid secretion is arrested, the bacillus in drinking 116 
Bulletin 65. 
water may easily pass through the sentinel stomach to develop in 
the intestines. 
h. Chemical Poisons in the Tuberculous Body. 
The soluble chemical poisons in meat and milk of consumptives 
will be noticed later as a potent cause alike of susceptibility to 
tuberculosis and of its more rapid progress when already in the 
system. 
Lesions and Symptoms of Tuberculosis. 
Tuberculosis appears under two great types : the acute and the 
chronic, the first of which may ruti a fatal course of four to six 
weeks, while the second may last for many years. At the outset 
in the acute form, and for a great length of time in the chronic, 
the disease-process may be confined to one organ or to one region 
of the body and therefore the symptoms may vary exceedingly 
according to the particular organ attacked. In many chronic 
cases, with the tubercles confined to one organ or locality (lym- 
phatic glands, liver, spleen, pancreas, etc.) the victim may be in 
good condition and no sign of disease may be recognized by the 
owner or even the veterinarian. In acute cases on the other hand 
and when the tubercles are generally diffused through the body, 
there is usually fever, wasting and emaciation in addition to the 
characteristic symptoms of disease in particular organs. 
The lesions being caused by the colonization and local multi- 
plication of the bacillus they tend to assume a rounded or nodular 
form, from which has been derived the name of tubercle. Such 
nodules may, however, be absent, the diseased product, being a 
diffuse infiltration and thickening of the affected part. The early 
nodule may vary in size from a millet seed up to a pea or more. 
It is at first red, congested and firm ; soon it may become gray in 
the center though still red outside. With the grayish discolor- 
ation comes a gradually extending death of the mass (coagulation 
necrosis)and disintegration into a more or less soft cheesy looking 
material (caseation). In cattle and chickens this cheesy nodule 
tends to remain firm and it may even become gritty through im- 
pregnation with earthy salts (calcification). Exceptionally it 
will soften into a semi-liquid whitish debris, resembling an abcess, 
and this excessive softening is the usual course of tubercle in 
swine. In some cases however the tubercle does not break down Tuberculosis. 
117 
into a dead cheesy mass but develops into firm fibrous rounded 
nodules hanging in clusters from the lungs, inside of the ribs, or 
skin, and known as pearl disease (perl-knoten), grapes, etc. This 
form is particularly common in cattle. In man may be found 
nearly all forms of the disease, the primary hard red congested 
nodule, the same with its grayish disintegrating centre, the firm 
caseated mass, the same further softened into a white or yellowish 
semi-liquid pus-like mass, and in addition an open unhealthy 
sore caused by the breaking down of the tuberculous growth on 
the skin (lupus), or intestine, etc. Similar tuberculous sores are 
found on the skin or mucous membrane (bowels, throat) of cattle 
and other animals. In all the many forms and seats of the dis- 
ease the bacillus may be found in the affected parts, and the 
morbid discharges from the lungs, skin, open sores, etc. 
Symptoms in Cattle. 
a. Tuberculosis of the lungs.—In the chronic cases which are 
by far the most common this may last for months and years un- 
perceived ; in acute cases it may prove fatal in a month. 
In recent, slight, chronic cases there may be no other ground 
of suspicion than an occasional cough when the animal leaves the 
hot stable for the cold outer air, when it is suddenly raised in the 
stall, when it is run for a short distance, when it drinks cold 
water or eats dusty food. The cough is usually small, dry, 
wheezing, and may be repeated several times. When run or 
driven rapidly the animal proves short winded. Yet it may show 
as good spirits, as clear, full an eye, as smooth glossy a coat, as 
supple and mellow a skin, as good an appetite, as rich and abund- 
ant a flow of milk, and as much propensity to fatten as its healthy 
fellows. An accomplished diagnostician may detect altered 
sounds on percussion and anscultation of the chest, but from the 
difficulty introduced by the heavy muscular shoulder, the frequent 
variations in the size of the heart, the rumbling and crepitating 
sounds from stomach and bowels, which, according as they are 
full or empty, press forward and dimish the size of the lungs, and 
greatly mask or modify the results, even the able practitioner can- 
not be trusted to detect these, and the case fails to be recognized. 
There may be a flow from the nose in which bacilli should be 
detected by the microscope, but cattle have a habit of cleaning 118 
Bulletin 65. 
the nose with the pointed tongue, so that the virulent particles 
are difficult to secure, and when secured they prove to contain 
few bacilli so that a failure to find these would not be so reassur- 
ing as it would be in man. As a large proportion of cases of 
chronic tuberculosis of the lungs are of this kind the tuberculin 
test, to be noted below becomes practically indispensible. 
When the lungs become more extensively involved symptoms 
are more distinct and reliable, and the animal usually falls off in 
condition, yet in many cases cattle in good condition are killed 
for beef and the lungs and ribs are found to be literally covered 
with clusters of fibrous tubercles (grapes). Usually in advanced 
cases the,hair is dry, lustreless, and erect in patches, especially 
along the back. The skin is dry, powdery, and rigid without its 
customary mellow touch or mobility on the parts beneath. The 
eye is less prominent and brilliant, the breathing is more easily 
accelerated, the cough, more frequent and easily roused, is often 
gurgling or rattling and may cause a discharge from the nose of 
a whitish flocculent, sometimes gritty material in the flocculi bacilli 
may sometimes be found. The breath is heavy and mawkish. 
Pinching of the back at the shoulders or loins may cause wincing, 
groaning or cough, as may also pinching above the breastbone 
or striking the ribs with the fingers or fist. Percussion over the 
ribs reveals spots where there is a lack of resonance, apart from 
the solid masses of the heart, liver, spleen and stomach contents, 
and listening over these spots will detect that variety of morbid 
sounds familiar to the physician, the most prominent being rub- 
bing, wheezing, creaking or fine crepetation, mucous rattling and 
various blowing sounds. A remarkable feature of tuberculosis 
distinguishing it from many other forms of lung consolidation 
attended by unnatural sounds, is the occurrence of such changes 
in patches with intervening spaces of sound lung. Ordinary inflam- 
mations more commonly attack one portion and spread from that 
as a center extending the solidification in one or all directions. 
Arrived at this stage the animal usually fails to make fiesh satis- 
factorily on the best feeding, and milk is not only lessened but 
becomes poor, blue and watery. 
The tubercles tend also to form more in other organs, notably 
the lymphatic glands and bowels, and digestion and assimi- 
lation being thus seriously interfered with emaciation advances Tuberculosis. 
119 
more rapidly. This advance may be largely accounted for by the 
fact that the infecting expectorations brought up with the cough 
is largely swallowed to affect stomach and bowels. The animal 
has now diminished, and capricious appetite, irregular, infre- 
quent, slow rumination and slight bloating after meals. The body 
temperature is more variable and more frequently high than in 
the slighter forms. 
In the advance stages of lung tuberculosis everyone can recog- 
nize the consumptive animal. It is miserably poor and wastes 
visibly day by day, the dry coat of hair stands erect, the harsh 
scurfy skin clings tightly to the bones, the pale eyes are sunken 
in the sockets, tears run down the cheeks, a yellowish, granular, 
foetid and often gritty discharges flow from the nose, the breathing 
is hurried and catching, the breathe foetid. The cough is weak, 
painful and easily roused by pinching the back or breast or strik- 
ing the ribs. Tapping the ribs with fingers or fist and applying 
the ear detect far more extensive changes including in many 
cases evidences of blowing into empty cavities (vomicae) and loud 
gurgling. Temperature may vary from below normal to 107° 
Fahr. 
In all such cases there is extension of the disease to distant 
organs and symptoms as given below complicate those of lung 
disease. To give means of diagnosis of tuberculosis from some 
diseases of the lungs which most resemble it in symptoms (lung 
worms, hydatids, actino-mycosis, lymphadenitis, etc.,) would 
unduly extend this article without corresponding advantage to 
my present class of readers. 
Tuberculosis of stomach, bowels and mesenteric glands. In young 
animals living on milk, tuberculosis of the bowels and glands 
give rise to indigestion, foetid diarrhoeas, bloating, and finally 
enlargement of the superficial lymphatic glands and the affection 
of the lungs if the animal should survive long enough. In older 
cattle there is impaired irregular appetite and rumination, slight 
bloating after meals, a tendency to scour when liberally grain 
fed, costiveness alternating with scouring, colics, and usually a 
more pronounced wasting than with the lung disease. The oiled 
hand introduced into the last gut may detect the enlarged mesen- 
teric glands which must be carefully distinguished from hardened 
faeces in the bowels from the ovaries, from masses of fat, etc. 120 
Bulletin 65. 
The temperature is raised in proportion to the activity of the 
tubercular process. 
Tiiberculosis of womb and ovaries.—These and their supporting 
membranes or ligaments are often implicated in the bowel dis- 
ease giving rise to undue generative excitement. They may also 
become primarily infected through coition. The affected cow is 
usually sterile, sooner or later parting with any ovum that may 
have been impregnated. Later her heats may become more 
intense and last longer, and never lead to impregnation. The 
cow spends most of her time wandering around, bellowing for 
the bull, and neglects to eat or ruminate and wastes away rapidly. 
There is often a whitish discharge from the vulva. The temper- 
ature is elevated and general tuberculosis sets in sooner or later. 
Tuberculosis of the liver spleen or pancreas.—The liver is one of 
the first organs to suffer in infection through the stomach and 
bowels, and it may be exclusively affected in calves and even in 
mature animals. Tuberculosis of the liver may be accompanied 
by impaired appetite and digestion, bloating after meals, and in 
exceptional cases by jaundice, but often an indefinite ill-health is 
all that can be detected. Pancreatic and splenic tubercle are 
marked by a similar obscurit}' of symptoms. It is usually only 
when the disease begins to be generalized that distinct, objective 
symptoms are available. 
Tuberculosis of the kidneys and bladder may be attended by 
extra sensitiveness of the loins to pinching and by frequent pass- 
age of urine, more or less discolored by blood or mixed with pur- 
ulent matter. Examination of the microscopic blood casts in the 
urine after having stained them may reveal bacilli. 
Tuberculosis of the throat. Pharyngeal glands.—This is one of 
the most common types in cattle. Attention is usually first 
drawn by a wheezing breathing, the sound manifestly coming 
from the throat, and the glands around that part are felt to be 
enlarged, unequal on the right and left sides, or shrunken and of 
a gristly hardness, or softened and even fluctuating on pressure. 
The formations above the throat and beneath the first bone of 
the neck, are particularly liable to undergo this special softening. 
There is usually a loose gurgling cough, some difficulty in swal- 
lowing, and a slimy discharge from the mouth. Small tubercu- 
lar growths may exist on the lining mucous membrane, and this Tuberculosis. 
sometimes extends into the air passages causing tuberculosis of 
the larynx with a persistent paroxysmal cough and a harsh altered 
voice. 
Tuberculosis of the udder.—A portion of a single quarter is 
usually first affected, causing a circumscribed swelling, harder 
than the rest of the gland, but not hot nor painful, and this grad- 
ually extends to the whole udder. With this extension the 
gland becomes harder, and the milk lessened, more watery and 
clotted, and the lymphatic glands in front of the udder and be- 
hind are enlarged, and hardened. The gradual advance of the 
disease serves to disarm the milker of any suspicion and the milk 
is commonly utilized until its watery or grumous appearance 
draws special attention to the gland. The case may be tested by 
inoculating with the milk, or less satisfactorily by a microscopic 
search for the bacillus, or the tuberculin test may be applied. 
Tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands.—In cattle the lymphatic 
glands are often found to be tuberculous to the exclusion of 
internal organs, and as this form of the disease tends to become 
chronic it is likely to be overlooked for a length of time. Wher- 
ever a group of these glands exists, there may be tuberculosis. 
In addition to those already cited may be here named : 
a. The submaxillary glands situated on the inner side of the 
lower jaw at the point where the pulse is felt. These which are 
almost imperceptible in their natural condition, may swell up to 
any size, soften, burst, and discharge a cheesy matter. They 
are most liable to be confounded with actinomysosis of the same 
region but do not show the almost microscopic hard yellow clus- 
ters of the actinomyces. They yield in place the specific bacillus. 
b. The glands at the root of the ear.—These swell in front or 
behind the ear, soften and like the submaxillary glands they may 
or may not burst and discharge. 
c. Glands inside the chest, mediastinal, bronchial, etc.—The 
mediastinal and bronchial glands lying between the lungs in the 
centre of the chest are often affected independently of the lungs, 
and give no easily available symptom. A persistent nervous 
cough and some unthriftiness, though on good, liberal rations, 
may arouse suspicion, but cannot lead to diagnosis. If thzglands 
on the walls of the gullet (oesophagean) are implicated the vagus 
nerve and stomach may be involved and digestion, rumination, 122 
Bulletin 65. 
and the eructation of gas may be interfered with so that chronic 
bloating may be added to the suggestive, though by no means 
diagnostic, symptoms. Equally obscure are the indications of 
disease of the glands beneath the back bone and those above the 
breast bone. Of the more superficial glands of the trunk the 
following are the most easily examined : 
d. Glands in front of the shoulder blade.—This group is in front 
of the middle of the shoulder blade, and may easily be siezed in 
the hands in thin cattle. If enlarged unequally on the two sides, 
or if very hard and nodular though small, suspicion may well 
attach to them. It is only on rare occasions that they burst and 
discharge. 
e. Glands above the stifle.—These placed on the side of the 
flank in front of the stifle can also be grasped and examined. 
Indeed, in certain animals, notably in the Channel Island breeds, 
they can be seen by the eye. Swelling, inequality, hardness, nod- 
ularity are the usual suspicious features. Often smaller pea-like 
or hazel-nut-like masses are found scattered over the lateral walls 
of the belly from the last rib to the hip bones, and even in the 
interval between the two last ribs. 
f. External inguinal glands.—In the male the glands on the 
sides of the scrotum, and in the female those on the sides of the 
udder may be felt to be enlarged when affected with tuberculosis. 
g. The posterior cervical gla?ids situated in the lower end of the 
furrow that lodges the jugular vein, may be similarly implicated 
and recognized. 
The deeper seated groups of lymphatic glands, need not be in- 
dividually referred to, for though subject to tuberculosis they 
rarely show as external swellings. Tubercles, however, may ap- 
pear in any part of the skin. I have found a caseated mass like a 
hickory nut on the point of the shoulder, and fibrous warty-like 
growths on the skin, and open unhealthy sores with hard fibrous 
surroundings may be fibroid tubercle. 
It must be borne in mind that the lymphatic glands are liable to 
become congested and inflamed from other sources of irritation in 
themselves and in their vicinity so that the mere fact of disease of 
these glands is no sufficient evidence of tuberculosis. It is how- 
ever ground for grave suspicion, and further exculpatory evidence 
is demanded. Tuberculosis. 
123 
Tziberculosis of bones and joints.—This is especially seen in 
young growing animals, being common in calves in badly infected 
herds. Wm. Mueller has produced it experimentally by inject- 
ing the nutrient artery of the bone in a three month’s goat. The 
bones most commonly attacked are those entering into the for- 
mation of the elbow and knee, the stifle and hock, and as the dis- 
ease usually extends from the gristly growing substance in the 
bones of the joint surface, the trouble is recognized as disease of 
the joints. In some instances, however, the disease begins in the 
lining membrane (synovial) of the joints and forms fungous 
growths extending into the bone. In the open (cancellated) tissue 
on the end of the bone it is at first red and congested, later it is 
partly fatty, and caseated. Usually the disease becomes general, 
but if it remains circumscribed, it is enveloped in a layer of dense 
hard bone. The animal is very lame, perhaps even unable! to rise, 
the joints swollen and tense, and the ends of the bones enlarged 
and tender. The disintregrated bone may even crumble and the 
sharp spiculae protrude through the skin. 
Further Indications of Tuberculosis. 
The above outline of symptoms seen in cattle is rendered neces- 
sary by the invariable question, “ how can I recognize it?” The 
intelligent reader will realize from the partial sketch above, that 
it is no simple matter to diagnose tuberculosis. It is to be hoped 
that he will also have apprehended so much of the subject as will 
save him from being victimized, by the man who boasts loudly, 
but really knows little. 
In the multitude of equivocal and occult cases further tests 
must be applied. These may be named as (i) microscopic search 
for the bacillus, (2) inoculation, and (3) 'injection of tuberculin. 
Inoculation.—The first named test having been already inci- 
dentally referred to, inoculation may be noticed. This consists in 
the introduction into the peritoneum or other part, of a guinea- 
pig or other animal or some of the suspected product (discharge 
from the nose, milk, juice from an enlarged gland, etc.) General 
abdominal tuberculosis should be present in the guineapig in 30 
days. Beside the delay, this has the draw-backs, that the guinea- 
pig may have been already infected before the inoculation, the 
portion of the suspected product may have been devoid of bacilli 124 
Bulletin 65. 
though these were abundant enough in the animal from which it 
was taken, or the guineapig may have become infected after the 
inoculation from being kept in an infected place, or from infected 
food, water, attendants, etc. We must first secure for the guinea- 
pig the very guarantee we are seeking for the larger animal. Is 
it not then better to secure this for the larger animal first and 
avoid all the subsequent sources of fallacy attendant on an inocu- 
lation experiment ? 
The tuberculin test gives prompt results and is less open to 
fallacy. 
Tuberculin. 
Tuberculin or Koch's lymph consists in the concentrated, 
sterilized liquids in which the bacillus tuberculosis has been 
grown. It contains no living bacillus ; all germs have been killed 
by heating ; but it does contain the chief poisons which are pro- 
duced in the tuberculous body, and which bring about all the 
diseased processes in such body. A possible exception may be 
made of any such poisons as are destroyed by heat if any such 
there be, in tuberculous products. It must be distinctly under- 
stood that in every contagious disease there is, ist, the germ 
which grows and multiplies in the susceptible animal system, but 
is not, in itself and by its mere presence, necessarily injurious, 
and, 2d, the products of the life of that germ which may or may 
not be poisonous. The many germs, which continually enter the 
animal body, have products that are not appreciably poisonous 
and therefore produce no disease, whereas the few that do manu- 
facture poisonous products cause our different contagious diseases. 
We find a counterpart in the yeast germ which in itself is virtually 
harmless to man, whilst the alcohol, which it manufactures from 
sugar under certain conditions, is a poison more or less hurtful 
according to the susceptibility of the person taking it. 
Tuberculin consists of chemical poisons which the bacillus 
secretes or manufactures, and on which the force and all the mani- 
festations of tubercle in the tissues are chargeable. Having no 
living germ it cannot increase its own substance, nor can it cause 
tuberculosis in a healthy system as it is soon thrown out of the 
body through the kidneys and other channels and its power for 
evil is at an end, yet none the less is it the immediate agent Tuberculosis. 
125 
through which all the destructive work of tuberculosis is carried 
on. Where the bacillus tuberculosis lives and multiplies in the 
animal body these chemical poisons are being constantly formed, 
and thus its pernicious action is continuous, not only in the seat 
of the tubercle but through the wrhole system. 
Tuberculin as a Test. 
The tuberculin test is based on the fact shown by Koch that it 
increases the activity of the disease process in tubercle, and affects 
the whole animal body producing a reaction or rise of tempera- 
ture in a marked degree. On the ordinary tubercle as seen on the 
surface, the frequent use of tuberculin produced a more active 
process of cell growth leading to degeneration and death, so that 
there was a more speedy transition from the red congested nodule, 
through the grayish degeneration into the dead cheesy mass, cut 
off from all blood circulation. If this dead mass were sloughed 
off leaving sound tissues to heal, that particular tubercle might be 
cured. But deeper tubercles usually exist and these are similarly 
stimulated and their degeneration hastened by the tuberculin ; 
it is impossible for them to be cast off; the increasing masses of 
bacilli, which have been produced under the rapid growth, are 
shut up in the solid tissues around to furnish new seed for a fresh 
extension of the disease. As such deep seated tubercles usually 
do exist with superficial ones, they render tuberculin almost 
useless as a curative agent, since to eradicate the disease the deep 
caseated tubercles must be afterward removed by surgical means, 
a resort which might have been had at the beginning and without 
the use of tuberculin. 
But this action which renders tuberculin so objectionable as a 
curative agent makes it of the highest value as a test of tubercu- 
losis in animals. The minute dose which has no effect on a 
healthy cow, horse or pig, when employed on the slightly tuber- 
culous one produces an acceleration of the disease process and 
in eight to fifteen hours a material rise of temperature. This has 
been now employed on thousands of cows and those who have 
used it most, value it the most highly, whereas’many who at first 
reported reactions in non-tuberculous animals are now acknow- 
ledging with Nocard that the feult has been mainly their own, for 
small tubercles were present but were overlooked through their 
failure to examine the bones and other organs. 126 
Bulletin 65. 
The explanation of the reaction under tuberculin may be very 
simply stated. The dose is made so small that it will not affect a 
healthy cow under ordinary conditions. In the slightly diseased 
cow the system contains a certain amount of tuberculin produced 
by the bacillus in the tubercles, but to this the system has become 
accustomed and it causes no very appreciable fever. But when 
in addition to this we introduce into the body of this cow the 
small amount of tuberculin, used for the test, the increased dose 
acts on tubercle and nervous centres alike and a fever is produced. 
So evenly balanced has been the tolerance acquired, and the 
amount of poison tolerated with impunity, that four drops of 
tuberculin will as a rule produce this elevation of temperature in 
the moderately tuberculous cow- 
Objection to Tuberculin as a Test.—ist. The temperature some- 
times rises in anon-tuberculous cow after the use of the tuberculin. 
This is true. So does the temperature sometimes rise in a non- 
tuberculous cow when no tuberculin has been employed. Every 
animal is liable to suffer from inflammation and fever, and if such 
inflammation and fever set in after the use of the tuberculin test 
they are liable to be charged to it as their cause. This is a valid 
argument against the reckless popular use of the tuberculin, but 
surely not against its use in skilled hands. The person who uses 
the tuberculin on cattle must be a trained veterinarian, acquainted 
with the different diseases of cattle and on his guard against con- 
founding any one of these with the temporary fever caused by 
tuberculin in the consumptive. If it is claimed that every rise of 
the body temperature after the use of tuberculin must necessarily 
demonstrate the existence of tuberculosis, then truly tuberculin 
will be discredited. But if it is held rather that a rise of tempera- 
ture after tuberculin, in a cow that furnishes to the most careful 
and skillful comparative pathologist no evidence of other disease, 
implies the existence of tuberculosis, the claim is substantially 
correct. To secure the valuable testimony of tuberculin, the 
practitioner must be highly skilled in the diseases of the animal 
operated on. If he is not he will be occasionally misled. 
Again heat or bulling may come upon a cow after the use of the 
tuberculin and the temperature will rise two or three degrees. 
To call such a cow tuberculous would be inexcusable careless- Tuberculosis. 
127 
ness. Yet the condition demanded, the rise of temperature after 
the use of tuberculin, is present. 
Again a cow that is closely approaching calving has the tem- 
perature raised. If tuberculin has been used it is often raised 
higher than it would be otherwise. It is therefore improper to 
use this agent on a cow at this period. 
Active exertion, exposure in the hot sun, confinment in a close 
building, the privation of water at the customary time and other 
conditions will cause rise of temperature. But such a rise would 
not imply tuberculosis, even after tuberculin. 
Apart from these and other such causes of error in unskilled 
hands, the rise of temperature under this test should be taken not 
as a condemnation of tuberculin, but as a stimulus to search for 
small occult tubercles. A thorough search will rarely prove 
fruitless. 
2nd. The temperature sometimes fails to rise under the tuber- 
culin test, though the animals be in the last stages of tuberculosis. 
This also is true. Here the body, seems to be already so 
saturated with tuberculin, that the small addition made in the 
test makes no impression, and if we trusted to the reaction alone, 
we would pronounce the cow free from the disease. But such cases 
are easily diagnosed without tuberculin. Even the unskilled more 
than suspect them, and a physical examination by the skilled 
practitioner leaves him in no doubt as to their condition. To use 
tuberculin on such cows is to waste an expensive agent and to 
run the risk of being misled. Objection based on blunders of this 
kind is valid enough as an argument against the use of tuberculin 
by the ignorant and thoughtless, but not against its use by an 
able practitioner. 
3d. Tuberculin causes reaction in even the slightest cases of 
tuberculosis, in which the victims would survive for years and 
might recover. 
This charge is also true, and it is because of its truth that tuber- 
culin is invaluable and indispensible as a diagnostic agent, in all 
attempts to put an end to the disease. An eminent German pro- 
fessor (Eggeling) in objecting to the use of tuberculin as a general 
test records the following experience. In a herd of 37 reaction 
after tuberculin occurred in 31, while 6 gave no reaction. When 128 
Bulletin 65. 
killed the 6 proved sound and the 31 without exception tubercu- 
lous. But of the 31 only 1 had general tuberculosis and was 
condemned as unfit for food, and 1 was sold as second-class meat. 
The 29 brought first-class prices as meat, and having been only 
slightly affected would probably have lived for years without in- 
fecting others. Now it is submitted that the German standard as 
thus given is not radical enough to secure safety for man or beast, 
nor to give hope of an early extinction of tuberculosis. The 
meat of the animal with two or three tubercles in one organ is 
generally, but by no means always, free from the germ. When 
the disease does extend from such isolated tubercles, as often 
happens, the germ is carried not only in the lymph, but in the 
blood, and with tubercle in the body no one can tell when the 
bacillus has passed into the circulation and reached the different 
organs. Tubercles usually form slowly and the bacilli must have 
been in the blood for some time before they show as fresh tubercles 
in tissues and organs distant from the old ones. The meat of a 
tuberculous animal can never therefore be fully guaranteed as 
safe to eat. But again, while a cow with one or two tubercles 
only in lymphatic glands, may not be liable to transmit the disease 
to others, yet whenever an extension takes place, the germs being 
carried by the blood and therefore throughout the whole system, 
there must always be danger of their escape from the natural 
surfaces (lungs, udder, liver, bowels, etc.) to infect other animals. 
And let it be borne in mind, this diffusion through the blood takes 
place before its occurrence is revealed by the formation of tuber- 
cles in new situations. So long, therefore, as a single victim of 
even slight tuberculosis is left in a herd it can only be looked 
upon as an invitation to a renewed extension of the disease. It 
also may become at any moment a source of infection for man 
through the use of the meat or milk. It is only in degree that 
the contagion of tuberculosis differs, as to its sanitary aspect, from 
that of any one of the more contagious diseases, and in all alike 
so soon as we attach more importance to the preservation of an 
infected animal that will probably recover, than we do to the 
radical extinction of the disease, we undermine and destroy the 
effectiveness of our sanitary work. Practically all cases of foot 
and mouth disease recover; yet the frequently recurring epizootics 
of this disease each cost from $5 to $10 per head over the entire Tuberculosis. 
129 
bovine population.. Of the victims of Rinderpest and Lung 
Plague that do not speedily die practically all recover. Are the 
slighter cases therefore to be kept alive to perpetuate indefinitely 
those disastrous visitations that sweep away values of hundreds 
of millions ? Is the remorseless scourge of tuberculosis to be 
perpetuated, not only in herds, but in our homes as well, to save 
for a few months or years some tuberculous cows ? No country 
has ever dealt successfully with any of these animal plagues on 
the basis of preserving the mild cases for recovery. Always and 
everywhere it has been by the radical and thorough extinction of 
the disease germ wherever found, that success has been achieved. 
While this cannot be done for man, it must be done for our flocks 
and herds if we would ever cut off this prolific animal source of 
tuberculosis from the human race. Even as regards the herds 
themselves the stockowner who would consult his own future in- 
terests, would at any cost exclude from his barns and fields every 
possible source of future tuberculosis. 
As will be shown below the meat and milk of tuberculous ani- 
mals contain tuberculin (even when they do not contain the 
bacilli), and serve to aggravate any existing or latent tuberculosis 
in man. 
4th. A fourth objection to the tuberculin test is its alleged lia- 
bility to produce tuberculosis in healthy animals, or to aggravate 
it in the tuberculous ones. 
Now tuberculin, properly prepared is absolutely sterilized, so 
that it can plant no living germ nor start the growth of any 
tubercle in a healthy animal. The further claim that it aggra- 
vates tuberculosis which is already in existence, is too true, and 
is the sound basis of its value as a test. As a means of testing 
the existence of tuberculosis in man it cannot be too strongly 
condemned, since no man has a right to seal the fate of his fellow 
for the sake of finding out if he has tuberculosis. The same 
condemnation must be passed on the use of tuberculin as an 
alleged curative agent, except in those few cases in which the 
tubercle is confined altogether to the surface of the body, whence 
it can easily be sloughed off. The existence or possible existence 
of an internal or deep-seated tubercle in man should forbid the 
use of tuberculin for diagnosis or for curative purposes. 
The same remark would apply to animals if we adopt the Ger- 130 
Bulletin 65. 
man view that it is impolitic to destroy those that are only slightly 
affected. If tubercle exists, to however limited an extent, tuber- 
culin tends to aggravate it, and the owner who wishes to preserve 
his mild cases cannot desire to have them made worse, which 
means to have the disease extended and possibly generalized. 
So in government sanitary work. Unless the government is 
prepared to slaughter and pay for every animal affected with 
tuberculosis in however slight a degree, it has no right to use a 
tuberculin test. It is only when the State means to make thor- 
ough work in eradicating tuberculosis from the herds that the 
tuberculin test is at all admissible. But when the State aims at 
the thorough extinction of the disease in our herds this test can- 
not be omitted, as it is absolutely essential to success. The tem- 
porary aggravation of the disease is no possible harm, when the 
animal is to be promptly killed and paid for. 
To sum up : The tuberculin test aggravates existing tuber- 
culosis and is, therefore, unwarrantable for use on man or on cat- 
tle that are to be kept alive ; it is, however, the only known 
means of detecting many occult cases of tuberculosis and is, 
therefore, indispensible in any systematic effort to stamp out the 
disease by the purchase and slaughter of every tuberculous 
animal. 
Meat and Milk of Tuberculosis Animals Unfit for Food. 
In this connection we must consider two questions essentially 
distinct from each other and equally important in a sanitary sense. 
The first is the question of infection by the use of such food prod- 
ucts, and has been very fully investigated by pathologists and 
sanitarians. The second question—is that of poisoning by the 
pernicious products of the germ and has hitherto been entirely 
ignored by sanitary writers and administrators. It will be con- 
venient to consider these questions separately. 
I. Infection by Bacilli in Meat and Miek. 
First however it will be instructive to compare the geographic 
distribution of cattle and that of tuberculosis, not with the view 
of showing that most of the tuberculous infection of man comes 
from cattle, for it probably comes mainly from his fellowman, but 
to demonstrate rather that in some way the intimate relation of 
cattle to man is a potent agent in the extension and maintenance 
of consumption in the human family. To the student of this Tuberculosis. 
subject it is plain that where cattle are few or absent consumption 
is relatively less prevalent in man. In northern Norway, Sweden, 
Lapland and Finland where reindeer constitute the chief farm 
stock,about Hudson Bay and in the islands of the Pacific where no 
cattle exist, and in the Scottish Hebrides, Iceland and Newfound- 
land where cattle are few, tuberculosis is far less prevalent in man. 
In Algiers (a resort of consumptives) the cattle are few and live 
in the open air apart from the cities and tuberculosis does not in- 
crease among the natives. In Italy (another resort of consump- 
tives) where cattle are housed, tuberculosis has become the 
scourge of man and beast (Perroncito). In Australia (a great re- 
sort for the English consumptive) the disease, formerly unknown, 
has become exceedingly prevalent, and the same is becoming true 
of our own Minnesota formerly so lauded as favorable to weak 
lungs. 
In the temperate regions of Europe and the United States at 
least every eighth death is due to consumption. Dr. Biggs tells 
us that in New York City every fifth death is from tuberculosis of 
the lungs. He adds that in the Charity hospital of the city 30 
per cent, of all deaths show old lesions of tuberculosis now be- 
come stationary. He quotes a Vienna hospital pathologist to the 
effect that he finds similar old stationary lesions in 85 per cent, of 
all post mortem examinations. This leaves but 15 per cent, who 
have not suffered from tuberculosis. 
But our Northwest Indians furnish the most striking illustra- 
tion of infection derived from cattle and fostered in man by unhy- 
gienic surroundings. Dr. Treon in the American Practitioner de- 
scribes the poor emaciated diseased animals furnished to the tribes, 
how the Indians eat the liver, tallow and entrails raw and fresh, 
and how the carcass is dried, pounded and packed in the skins to 
be eaten later without cooking. The meat is eaten even though 
the animal may have died of disease. Dr. Holder in the Medical 
Record (August 13, 1892) gives the Indian mortality from con- 
sumption as 50 per cent, of all deaths at Green Bay, Wis., Tulalip, 
W. T., and Western Shoshone, Nev. He says that at Lower 
Brule, Dak., scrofula is present in 60 per cent, of the Sioux under 
21 years and that at Crow Creek, Dak., 50 out of a total Indian 
population of 1,200 die yearly of consumption and scrofula. Taken 132 
Bulletin 65. 
along with half as many deaths from other causes this would kill 
the whole 1,200 in 16 years. 
These are extreme examples it is true, in which the transmission 
and fostering of the disease by cattle, is extended and aggravated 
by overcrowding and every imaginable unhygienic condition, 
among the human consumers. 
The experimental transmission of tuberculosis by feeding 
tuburculous products was demonstrated by Villemin, Gunther 
and Harms, Zurn, Gerlach, Johne, Kolb, Toussaint, Chauvean, 
Peuch, Leisering, Bollinger and a host of others, the animals in- 
fected in this way including Guinea pigs, rabbits, fowls, swine, 
sheep, goats, dogs, cats and birds. Infection was by no means so 
constant as when inoculation was performed, yet in 322 experi- 
ments recorded by Johne 13 per cent, became tuberculous. The 
varying results depend on a variety of causes, among which may 
be named :— 
1st. The relative susceptibility of the various animals experi- 
mented on. As we know this varies greatly with the genus, 
species, family and even the individual. 
2d. The condition of the digestive organs at the time of feed- 
ing. The bacillus tuberculosis lives in an alkaline or neutral 
medium and suffers weaking or even death in an acid liquid like 
the contents of the stomach during active digestion. If there- 
fore the subject of experiment has a strong digestion, and if in- 
fecting matter is taken only during active digestion, infection is 
usually promoted. If on the other hand the infecting material 
passes through the stomach in water or otherwise in the intervals 
between digestion when the stomach is neutral, if there is indi- 
gestion so that the contents are only mildly acid, and infecting 
morsels pass into the bowel without having been digested or 
thoroughly impregnated with acid, or if the stomach is overloaded 
so that part of its food passes on undigested, then manifestly in- 
fection is possible or probable. Again if there are raw sores on the 
mouth, throat or gullet or if the germ happens to lodge in the 
recesses of the bowels or pass down into the lungs infection may 
start from any such point as a center. 
3d. The germ is more or less virulent according to the animal 
Experhnental Tuberculosis by Feeding. Tuberculosis. 
133 
from which it is derived. Thus the virus from the ox which proves 
certainly fatal to the guineapig on inoculation, cannot be suc- 
cessfully inoculated under the skin of the guineapig after it has 
passed through several generations in as many birds, but if inocu- 
lated from the bird in the abdomen of the guineapig and con- 
tinued for several generations in this rodent it reacquires all its 
former potency (Nocard, etc.). So to a less extent with cattle ; 
from one cow the inoculation invariably produces the disease ; 
from another only occasionally. The same must hold in feeding. 
4th. The degree of infection of the material fed has much in- 
fluence. Tuberculous glands, and tubercles whether recent or 
caseated are of course the most certainly infecting. The blood 
and red flesh (in the ox) may be said to be the least frequently 
infecting, while the infecting power of milk will vary according 
as the udder is or is not the seat of tubercle. Toussaint who 
seems to have met with especially virulent cases inoculated suc- 
cessfully with the blood, nasal discharge, bile, urine, tears, flesh 
juice, dung, etc., of a tuberculous cow. Others like Nocard and 
McFadyean have failed with blood and flesh juice. The danger 
may be estimated by taking a middle position. It may be well to 
consider the blood,.flesh and milk separately. 
Dangersfrom Blood. 
It cannot be denied that blood is inimical to this bacillus as to 
most other microbes. Even if the virus is injected into the veins 
in such quantity as to produce general tuberculosis, the germs 
become largely arrested in different organs or robbed of their vir- 
ulence so that in a few days the blood is comparatively little 
infecting. This does not, however, do away with the fact that 
the injected bacilli live long enough in the blood to produce tuber- 
cles in many different organs, and the same is true when the dis- 
ease extends from single primary tubercles, to a general tubercu- 
losis ; in most cases the bacilli can only have travelled through 
the blood. Bang found that of 20 cows in advanced tuberculosis, 
the blood of only two (or 10 per cent.) proved infecting when 
inoculated. Nocard has never succeeded in producing the disease 
by injecting the blood of a tuberculous ox into the abdominal 
cavity, yet he recognizes that as the disease extends by means of 
bacilli conveyed by the blood, this liquid must be infecting wher- Bulletin 65. 
ever these bacilli are contained in it. As the migrating bacilli 
must be present in the blood before these secondary tubercles can 
be formed by them in organs distant from the tubercles that gave 
them birth, it follows that this infecting condition of the blood 
must precede the formation of the secondary tubercle, or general 
tuberculosis. While therefore it is quite true that the probabilities 
of infecting blood are greatly increased when the tubercles are 
numerous and generally diffused, it is an error to assume that the 
restriction of the tubercles to one organ is a guarantee that the 
blood is non-infecting. And when we cannot give a guarantee for 
the blood we can give none for any part or organ in which blood 
circulates. 
Danger from Flesh. 
It would seem as if the muscle or red flesh in cattle were antag- 
onistic to the bacillus tuberculosis. Certain it is that tubercles 
are rare in the substance of the muscle. They are, however, 
very common in the lymphatic glands lying between the muscles, 
and in swine they are common in the substance even of the red 
flesh. The flesh of tuberculous pigs is therefore far more danger- 
ous than is that of consumptive cattle. Even in tuberculous 
cattle, however, the beef is not always free from bacilli as shown 
especially by the crucial test of inoculating its juice. Arloing 
tested 10 tuberculous cattle in this way by inoculating guinea- 
piga and found that the muscle from two of the cows only (20 per 
cent.) proved infecting, and that only 3 of the 10 guineapigs 
inoculated by the muscle juice of these two cows became tuber- 
culous. Galtier fed two calves and two young pigs with the raw 
flesh of a tuberculous cow, but failed to infect them. This fail- 
ure was, however, not necessarily due to the absence of bacilli, 
since two rabbits inoculated with juice from the same flesh con- 
tracted tuberculosis. Nocard fed several litters of young kittens 
on the flesh of cattle condemned as tuberculous, at the abattoirs 
of La Vilette and Grenelle, but none of them contracted tuber- 
culosis.* Perroncito fed 18 young pigs from three to five months 
on the flesh of cattle condemned as tuberculous in the Naples 
abattoirs, yet none became tuberculous. 
*By inoculation with the muscle juice of tuberculous cattle Nocard 
infected 5 per cent, of the subjects of experiment. Tuberculosis- 
Two things are shown by the above : (a) that the red muscle 
is less frequently infecting than other parts, yet unquestionably 
so in some cases ; and (b) that the acid stomach juices during 
vigorous digestion are in some measure protective. It is equally 
plain that no sufficient guarantee can be given as to the safety of 
the raw flesh in any particular case. Then, again, the intermus- 
cular lymphatic glands, which are favorite seats of infection, were 
carefully avoided in the above experiments with flesh juice, yet 
they always go with the dressed carcass and are eaten with its 
steaks and roasts. In pigs, as already noted, the muscle itself is 
often tuberculous. 
Milk is more to be dreaded than meat because the udder is 
often the seat of tuberculosis, and the milk is usually taken 
uncooked. The danger is enhanced by the fact that this is often 
the necessary and only food of the infant and invalid, in which 
the germ is especially liable, through weak and imperfect diges- 
tion, to escape into the susceptible bowel. 
In milk, as in the case of meat, a strong, vigorous digestion 
does, in some measure, protect the consumer. Peuch fed a two 
months’ pig in five days quarts of milk drawn from a tuber- 
culous udder, and killed in 56 days it proved quite sound. He 
inoculated four rabbits with the milk and all four became tuber- 
culous. Again, in the absence of tuberculosis in the udder the 
milk may be little, if at all, infecting. Gerlach, who produced 
tuberculosis in calves, pigs and rabbits by feeding the milk, 
found no result from certain tuberculous cows, while others 
infected a large proportion. Nocard and McFadyean have been 
unable to infect rabbits, etc., with milk from an apparently 
sound udder of a tuberculous cow. The same has been my ex- 
perience with milk from one cow in the last stages of chronic 
tuberculosis, and another having acute tuberculosis. Bollinger, 
Nocard and McFadyean claim that in the absence of tubercle in 
the udder the milk is not infecting. Whether true or not as an 
ultimate fact this cannot be made a rule of action, as the follow- 
ing will show : 
Hirschberger inoculated rabbits in the abdominal cavity, with 
the milk of 29 tuberculous cows of which the udders were or 
appeared sound, and produced tuberculosis 14 times. 
Danger from Milk. 136 
Bulletin 65. 
Bang inoculated from 63 tuberculous cows selected for their 
sound udders, and found the milk of 9 of them infecting. A care- 
ful microscopic examination revealed tuberculosis in the udders of 
three of the cows, leaving six giving infecting milk in which even 
after death, and with all scientific appliances no tubercle could be 
found in the udder. This is 9.5 per cent, as tested by the micro- 
scope after death ; it was 14.28 per cent, as tested by the able 
veterinary professor during the life of the cows. 
Ernst found 10 cows in 35 with infecting milk though the 
udders were sound. In 103 animals inoculated 17 contracted 
tuberculosis, and of 12 calves sucking the cows 5 became tuber- 
culous. 
Drs. Smith and Kilborne (Bureau of Animal Industry, Bul- 
letin No. 3.) found the milk infecting in three cows out of six 
with apparently sound udders. One infecting cow, and one non- 
infecting one had each tubercle in the lymphatic gland behind the 
udder. Forty-four per cent, of the inoculated guinea-pigs con- 
tracted tuberculosis : 1 in 5 from one cow, 8 in 10 from another 
and 6 in 6 from the third 
In my own experience three calves, from healthy parents, suck- 
ing the apparently sound udders of three cows with general tuber- 
culosis all contracted the disease. 
It must be allowed that calves sucking the cows run extra risk 
of infection through their nurses licking them and through feeding 
from a common trough, but there is the same danger for the ordi- 
nary milk consumer, since the cow in licking her udder is liable to 
leave bacilli to fall into the pail at the next milking. 
Again the concentration of the bacillus in the indiluted milk 
of an infecting cow, renders this much more dangerous than the 
milk of the same cow diluted, with that of 20, 50 or 100 others. 
Bollinger and Gebhardt found that milk which infected all ani- 
mals that took it pure, was apparently harmless when diluted with 
50 or 100 times its volume of the milk of sound cows. As the 
bacillus can live in milk this apparent loss of virulence must be 
largely due to the reduction of the number of bacilli in a given 
measure of milk, and to their tendency to removal by adhering to 
the sides of the vessel during the mixing. 
Tuberculous expectoration which is incomparably richer in bacilli Tuberculosis. 
137 
may be diluted in 100,000 times its volume of water and yet 
remain infecting. But again the glutinous saliva forms a pro- 
tecting coating which strongly resists dilution. 
Infection of Man Through the Milk.—Instances of accidental 
tuberculosis of the human being through drinking the unsterilized 
milk are no longer wanting. 
In the practice of Dr. Stang of Amorback, a well developed five 
year old boy, from sound parents, whose ancestors on both male 
and female sides were free from hereditary taint, succumbed, after 
a few week’s illness with acute inilliary tuberculosis of the lungs 
and enormously enlarged mesentric glands. A short time before 
the parents had their family cow killed and found her the victim 
of advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. (Eydtin). 
Dr. Demme records the cases of four infants in the Child’s 
Hospital at Berne, the issue of sound parents, without any tuber- 
culosis ancestry, that died of intestinal and mesenteric tuberculosis, 
as the result of feeding on the unsterilized milk of tuberculous 
cows., These were the only cases in which he was able to exclude 
the possibility of other causes for the disease, but in these he was 
satisfied that the milk was alone to blame. 
After a lecture of the author’s at Providence, R. I., a gentleman 
of North Hadley, Mass., a graduate of the Massachusetts Agri- 
cultural College, publicly stated that his only child, a strong, 
vigorous boy of one and one-half years, went to an uncle’s for 
one week and drank the milk of a cow which was shortly after 
condemned and killed in a state of generalized tuberculosis. In 
six weeks the child was noticeably falling off and in three months 
he died, a mere skeleton, with tuberculosis of the abdomen. The 
father could trace no tuberculosis among his near ancestors, but 
the mother’s father and uncle had both died of it. She remains 
in excellent health. 
Dr. E. O. Shakespeare (Med. News, March 26th, 1892) attrib- 
utes one-fifth of all deaths in infants and young children, feeding 
on milk, to tuberculosis usually commencing in some part of the 
digestive organs. 
Identity of tuberculosis in cattle and man.—This is abundantly 
proved in the above instances of the infection of man through 
the milk and in the hundreds of cases in which the tubercle of Bulletin 65. 
man has been successfully inoculated on the lower animals. As 
evidence of direct transference of the disease from cattle to man 
by inoculation the following two cases are quoted : 
Tscherming, of Copenhagen, attended a veterinarian who had 
cut his finger in making a post mortem examination on a tuber- 
culosis cow ; the wound healed, but there remained a swelling 
which soon ulcerated and refused to heal, so that the whole tumer- 
fied mass had to be cut out. The microscope revealed the dis- 
tinct tubercular process and the presence of the characteristically 
staining bacilli. 
Pfeiffer attended a Weimar, veterinarian of the name of Moses, 
34 years old, of a good constitution, and without hereditary pre- 
disposition, who, in 1885, cut his right thumb deeply in making 
a post mortem examination of a tuberculous cow. The wound 
healed but six months later the cicatrix still remained swollen, 
and in the autumn of 1886 the man had pulmonary tuberculosis 
with bacilli in his sputa and death occurred in two and a half 
years after the wound. Post mortem examination revealed tuber- 
culosis of the joint of the wounded thumb, and in the lungs 
extensive tubercles and vomicae. 
To Tscherming’s may be added the case of a young veterinary 
friend of the writer, who was inoculated in the hand in opening 
a tuberculous cow, and suffered from a tumefaction of the result- 
ing cicatrix, with distinct tubercle bacilli. The surgical removal 
of the tumefaction manifestly saved the subject from a general- 
ized tuberculosis. 
II. Poisoning by Ptomaines and Toxins, in Meat and 
Milk of Tuberculous Animals. 
By an unaccountable oversight medical and veterinary Sani- 
tarians alike have never, up to the present hour, looked beyond 
infection by the tubercle bacillus in estimating the dangers to 
man of tuberculosis in our flocks and herds. We find accordingly 
that the question kept continually before the public is that of the 
presence or absence of the tubercle bacillus in any food product, 
—meat, milk, butter or cheese—furnished by the diseased or sus- 
pected animal. The question of the presence or absence of 
ptomaines or other toxic elements which are calculated to prove Tuberculosis. 
139 
hurtful or even fatal to certain members of the human race is not 
for a moment considered. 
Hence we are met by the most elaborate arguments that tuber- 
cle is rare in the muscular system of cattle, and that muscle juice 
is inimical to the bacillus and that therefore the muscular tissue 
which forms the great mass of the dressed carcass may, as a rule, 
be safely eateu even though the internal organs may have been 
affected by tubercle. In Germany and other European countries 
the flesh of animals in which the tubercles are found in only one 
organ or in two related ones, is passed as wholesome. It is only 
when the tubercles are found in the bones, or muscles, or in the 
lymphatic glands among these, or finally when the tubercles are 
so generally distributed in different parts of the body that it is 
evident that the bacilli must have been carried by the blood, that 
the meat is rejected as unfit for human food. So with milk and 
other dairy products ; many claim with Nocard and Me Fadyean 
that the milk is harmless so long as the udder is quite free from 
tubercle, and that it is only when tubercle is unmistakably present 
in that gland that this secretion is to be feared. Apart altogether 
from these discussions as to the wholesomeness of uncooked 
flesh and milk it is safe to say that up to the present, every writer 
on the subject holds that even the infecting tuberculous meat and 
milk is rendered absolutely harmless by cooking. The consensus 
of professional opinion on this subject is tersely given by Salmon 
and Smith in their article on tuberculosis in the work on the 
“Diseases of Cattle” published by the Bureau of Animal In- 
dustry—“ Fortunately tubercle bacilli are readily destroyed by 
the temperature of boiling water, and hence both meat and milk 
are made entirely safe, the former by the various processes of 
cooking ; the latter by boiling for a few minutes.” 
But this is altogether too narrow a view to take of the subject, 
and it is liable to lead to most serious and fatal results if put into 
every-day practice. The professional mind, in concentrating its 
attention on tubercular infection, has practically entirely over- 
looked the no less real and, in many cases, no less dangerous fact 
of tubercular poiso?iing. To elucidate this matter let us consider 
that much of the poisonous matter produced by the growth of the 
tubercle bacillus is retained in Koch’s “tuberculin,” which has 
been absolutely sterilized. What, then, is the action of “ tuber- 140 
Bulletin 65. 
culin” on the animal system ? It produces a constitutional dis- 
order with elevation of the body temperature, commonly known 
as fever, and an impairment of most of the bodily functions, nota- 
bly those of assimilation and secretion. This is abundantly man- 
ifest in the wasting and fever of the victim of acute tuberculosis 
in which these poisonous principles are being constantly produced 
in large quantities. As the dose is reduced, a point is finally 
reached at which no fever nor appreciable systematic derangement 
is produced, and thus in many slight and indolent cases of tuber- 
culosis the animal appears well, and thus, also, the usual test 
dose of tuberculin has no recognizable disturbing effect on the 
healthy animal system. With a dose less than this it may even 
be questioned whether it may not be actually beneficial in con- 
ferring on the healthy system a small measure of tolerance and 
power of resistance to the bacillus and its poisons. This, how- 
ever, is of little account, seeing that no real immunity from tuber- 
culosis is ever acquired. In many systems, both human and 
brute, the disease continues its slow progress for many years, and 
the slight tolerance that results, while it may* suppress the dis- 
ease so that it assumes an indolent and chronic form, does not 
fully arrest it. 
Very different is the effect of even a minimum dose of tubercu- 
lin on a subject which is already attacked with tuberculosis. In 
such a case the products of the existing tubercle, circulating in 
the blood and tissues, are often so small in amount and the sys- 
tem has acquired such a tolerance of them that there is no mani- 
fest disturbance of health and the animal may even be in excellent 
condition. But add to this minimum amount of poison already 
in the system a small quantity of tuberculin and in ten or fifteen 
hours the temperature of the patient’s body will rise two or more 
degrees above the normal, and the destructive process going on 
in the seats of the tubercles will be accelerated. In cattle this is 
now used as a most valuable test of the presence or absence of 
occult tubercle. In horses and other animals, the subjects of 
of tuberculosis, ‘ ‘ tuberculin ’ ’ causes the same rise of temperature, 
and this rise may be accepted as a rule applicable to all classes of 
animals. In the tuberculous man this action of “ tuberculin ” is 
a well established fact, and was made the basis of Koch’s employ- Tuberculosis. 
ment of this material as a curative agent. The daily use of tuber- 
culin in cases of lupus or other superficial forms of tuberculosis 
led to a more active congestion and an earlier molecular death of 
the tissues of the local tubercle, until these were separated from 
the living, healthy parts and the progress of tuberculosis in that 
part was arrested. If there were then no deeper unseen tubercles 
left in the system, a real cure might be effected in this way. But 
the cure in such a case was only secured by a temporary aggrava- 
tion of the disease in its primary focus- If other tubercles existed 
in internal organs they, too, had the morbid process aggravated 
and extended and the death of tissue increased by the fresh intro- 
duction of tuberculin from without. In such a case the increased 
mass of tubercle—dead and living—remained confined in the 
midst of the surrounding tissues, and as the infecting materials 
could not be cast off and separated from the body, they continued 
their ravages with an increasing force in proportion to their recent 
artificial extension. 
It is this extension of the tuberculosis under the influence of 
the toxic products of the bacillus which raises the most impor- 
tant question in connection with the consumption by man of the 
flesh and dairy products of tuberculous animals and yet this 
question has been overlooked by sanitarians in the most unac- 
countable way. It has seemed enough for them that the living 
tubercle bacillus did not exist in the juices of the muscles nor in 
the milk. It seems never to have occurred to them that all the 
soluble poisonous products of this bacillus were constantly circul- 
ating in the blood which passes through the muscles, and that 
they equally traversed the blood vessels of the mammary glands 
and escaped into the milk. No pathologist can for a moment 
doubt this general diffusion of these products in the tuberculous 
subject. 
Accepting then as undeniable the presence of the soluble chem- 
ical poisons in blood, flesh and milk, it follows that those who 
eat this flesh or milk are continually taking in small doses of 
tuberculin, and that in case they are already the victims of tuber- 
culosis in however slight or indolent a form, this continuous 
accession of the poison will rouse the morbid process into greater 
activity and secure a dangerous extension. 
141 142 
Bulletin 65. 
If we now consider the frightful prevalence of tuberculosis in 
the human race, that here in New York every eighth person dies 
of tuberculosis, that in cities like Vienna 85 per cent, of the peo- 
ple suffer from it, and that in our own cities 30 to 50 per cent, 
contract it at some period of life, we see what a fearful risk is 
being run by the utilization of the meat and milk of animals so 
affected, even if it could be shown that such meat and milk were 
in themselves free from the living bacillus. Such reckless con- 
sumption of the products of tuberculous animals can only be looked 
on as a direct means of sealing the fate of that large proportion 
of the community which are already slightly affected with tuber- 
culosis. 
The claim that the canning of tuberculous carcasses and the 
boiling or Pasteurizing of milk does away with every element of 
danger can no longer be entertained. Sterilization is not a restora- 
tion to a non-poisonous condition ; it does away with the possibil- 
ity of infection, it is true, but it does not render the product in- 
nocuous. 
As a matter of fact Koch’s tuberculin has been sterilized by 
heat, but this has not by any means rendered it safe and harmless. 
On the contrary it invariably intensifies any existing tuberculous 
process and develops fever and general constitutional disorder. 
When tuberculin, therefore, is present in meat and milk it can only 
cause these to operate in the same way on subjects that have been 
already infected. In my experience with tuberculous cows, cases 
have come to my knowledge in which invalids drinking the milk 
of such animals have suffered very obviously and have improved 
after such milk was withheld. So too in the case of calves suck- 
ing phthisical cows ; they have done badly and proved unthrifty 
though they took the whole of the milk furnished by their re- 
spective nurses, and they have thriven better when weaned and 
put upon solid food alone. I have followed some such calves 
until they grew up and were slaughtered, and have made post- 
mortem examinations and found them bearing old calcified tuber- 
cles pointing back to the time when they sucked the infected and 
poisonous milk. 
It is idle to say that such milk was merely lacking in nutritive 
principles :—the calves in question had access to other food, while Tuberculosis. 
143 
following their nurses, and would not have been harmed by taking 
the same amount of pure water as they took of milk. Apart from 
the bacilli, which operated slowly, and which allowed these ani- 
mals to live for years and even thrive after they had ceased taking 
the milk, there was unquestionably in this secretion a definite 
poison which undermined the health and stimulated the progress 
of the tuberculous process. Accessions of bacilli are not denied, 
but at the worst these acted tardily, and apart from the soluble 
poisons their action must have been cumulative up to the cessation 
of the milk feeding, so that immediately after the withdrawal of 
the milk the morbid action should have been greater than at any 
time before this, whereas in the cases in question improvement 
dated from the change to dry coarse food. 
K. Yamagiva in his experiments on guineapigs obtained corre- 
sponding results. After inoculation with tubercle, the admini- 
stration of tuberculin greatly hastened the onset of general tuber- 
culosis so that after a week tuberculous centres were found in 
lymphatic glands, spleen, liver and lungs. 
If this is the result in guineapigs which though very subject to 
tuberculosis are not easily poisoned by tuberculin, how much 
more so in man who is many thousand times more susceptible to 
tuberculin ? The healthy guineapig is almost unaffected by 2 
grammes of tuberculin, while man weighing eighty times as much 
is seriously affected by gramme. In the tuberculous condi- 
tion the guineapig reacts violently under % gramme, while man 
is seriously affected by 1010 0 gramme. Weight for weight being 
considered it follows that the consumptive man is 20,000 times 
more susceptible to the tuberculin poisons than is the guineapig. 
From this may be inferred the danger to the tuberculous man, of 
meat or milk containing the poisons of tuberculin. 
It may be safely held as proved, by analogy, observation and 
experiment that the soluble poisons of tuberculosis invariably 
operate by exaggerating any existing tuberculous process, and that 
blood and all animal fluids becoming charged with such poisons 
uniformly tend to further endanger the health or even the life of 
any person who may consume them while suffering from tubercu- 
losis. 
We may freely allow that the transmission of the bacillus from 144 
Bulletin 65. 
man to man is far more common than from beast to man. But 
though the implanted seed may have been in many cases derived 
from a fellowman, its subsequent destructive progress maybe due 
far more to the constant accessions of the soluble poisonous prod- 
ucts conveyed in the meat and milk of tuberculous animals. 
Without these constant doses of soluble poisons of tubercle, the 
implanted germ would in many cases have proved comparatively 
harmless. Although it could be proved in regard to many cases 
that the cow had not contributed the seed of the diseases, she is 
left little less responsible for the destructive progress and fatal 
result. The germ which might have remained comparatively dor- 
mant and harmless in the absence of the poisoned meat and milk 
is by these stimulated to a more deadly energy. 
How to Meet the Danger. 
This hitherto unchallenged factor in the progress of tubercu 
losis, opens up new and uncultivated fields for sanitary work. 
The great evil ventilated in this paper cannot be effectually met 
without the eradication of tubercolosis from every herd kept for 
the supply of food products for the public. Nothing short of this 
can be trusted to act satisfactorily in putting a check upon the 
present fearful mortality from this disease. No inspection of 
dressed carcasses, nor of milk, butter and cheese will furnish a 
guarantee. We must go to the herds and subject them animal 
by animal to a critical test, and only accept the products as safe 
when there is no longer a shadow of suspicion remaining. A 
professional examination of the most searching kind must be 
supplemented by the “tuberculin” test before a clean bill of health 
can be furnished. In my own experience on cattle two thirds of 
the cases of tuberculosis sometimes escaped under the most criti- 
cal professional examination and were detected later by the 
“tuberculin” test. Often, when cattle were condemfted by the 
“tuberculin” test, have the owners pronounced them the most 
thrifty and the least suspected in the herd, and it was only after 
slaughter, when the bodies were opened and the caseated tubercle 
exposed, that they were satisfied that no mistake had been made. 
Recently in a herd kept for the supply of high priced milk of 
guaranteed soundness, the stock having been subjected to weekly Tuberculosis. 
examinations by a veterinarian, the “ tuberculin ” test was ap- 
plied and 50 per cent, of the herd demonstrated to be tuberculous. 
Without the “ tuberculin ” test there is no guarantee possible for 
the products of the dairy, and the sanitary officers who will affect 
to deal with this disease in herds without the aid of “ tuberculin ” 
are at best but pruning the tips of the branches of the evil tree. 
Public money ought not to be thrown away on such fruitless and 
ineffective work. The purification of a herd must be followed in 
every case by a thorough disinfection of contaminated buildings 
and places, and by a careful seclusion of the herd from new sources 
of infection. It is evident therefore that the nontuberculous herd 
must be secured against the addition of fresh animals from any 
herd that has not been similarly attested sound, and that any 
necessary addition from another source must be tested by “ tuber- 
culin ” before it is added to the herd. Equally important is it to 
test all farm animals of whatever species which live on the place 
and cohabit with the herd, and to see to it that no human being 
suffering from tuberculosis is allowed to attend to the animals or 
to prepare their food. It is difficult to see how anything short of 
such a system can afford a guarantee of the absence of the soluble 
tubercle poisons from our milk, butter and cheese. 
In the case of butcher meats a professional examination when 
slaughtered, covering all of the viscera as well as the carcass, 
will be essential, and the current doctrine of sound meat with 
localized tuberculosis must be abandoned. Every municipality 
must have its own public abattoir in which alone its meat supplies 
should be butchered and where every carcass should be systemati- 
cally examined as it is opened. Private slaughter-houses con- 
trolled by individual owners afford endless opportunities for the 
evasion of sanitary statutes, and ought to be abandoned as relics 
of an age when modern sanitary science was unknown. 
The question of dressed, canned and salted meats is one that 
must be carefully considered. It is quite evident that such pro- 
ducts must come to us with a sufficient guarantee if allowed to 
compete with our home meats which have passed the municipal 
inspection. It is equally evident that no inspector paid by the 
packer or canner can furnish a certificate which will command 
public confidence. The inspector must be a government official who 146 
Bulletin 65. 
is entirely independent of the packers and who is in no way de- 
pendent on their good will. 
Then again the existing method of furnishing government in- 
spectors at our great packing centers only, and thus giving a 
monopoly to the large operators, cannot be long maintained in a 
country of equal rights and privileges. The most obvious cure for 
this evil is to make all packing establishments government insti- 
tutions, where the small packer shall have equal privileges with 
the large, and where all carcasses shall be subjected to the same 
scrutiny and all shall go out with the same guarantee. 
Such a proposition will doubtless be severely criticized both 
from the medical and economic standpoint. 
On the medical side it will be argued that if the soluble poisons 
in the meat and milk were as injurious as represented, we would 
see the evil results on every side and that medical men would be 
universally cognisant of them. And yet do we not see clearly 
to-day much that was never suspected twenty, thirty or fifty years 
ago ? How recent is the acceptance by the profession of the doc- 
trine of contagion in tuberculosis, in tetanus, in pneumonia, in 
influenza, in glanders, etc. Are we to suppose that our forefathers 
were surrounded by fewer evidences of contagion, at a time when 
no precautions were taken to prevent it, than we are with all the 
antiseptic and antizymotic provisions of the present day ? The 
facts of contagion were doubtless more abundant in their days 
than in these, but their attention had never been drawn to them. 
So now let the attention of physicians and sanitarians be given to 
the morbid action of soluble poisons of tubercle and evidences of 
their evil results will accumulate on all sides. It is the scrutiny 
and not the facts that are wanting. 
The economist will object to drastic measures for the suppres- 
sion of tuberculosis on the ground of expense. Who is to pay for 
the municipal abattoirs, the inspectorships, the disinfections, and 
the indemnities for slaughtered animals ? In return let me ask, 
who now pays for the constant losses of live stock which the pro- 
posed system would put a stop to ; for the frequent infection of 
sound herds by unfortunate purchases of animals that prove to be 
tuberculous ; for the losses to the nation, to the community and 
family of the tuberculous one-eighth of all deaths ; for the loss of Tuberculosis. 
147 
work—literary, scientific, manufacturing, commercial, domestic 
and manual of the great host ol consumptives waiting all over the 
land to fill ihe places of this fatal eighth in coming mortality 
statistics ; for the losses represented by the bills of the physician, 
nurse and druggist for these invalids ; and for the losses repres- 
ented by the many migrations and exiles in search of health and 
of the costly consumption hospitals and sanitaria ? And who is 
to pay in the future for the needless harvest of similar fruits, 
which the seeds now sown through our supineness, must inevitably 
produce in the coming generations ? 
Is it not a truer economy to destroy the seed before in has ger- 
minated, or even before it has been sown, than to wait for the mul- 
titudinous evils that must attend on its growth and fructification ? 
Preventive Measures for Adoption by the Stockowner. 
If he will the stockowner can extirpate this disease from his 
herd and thereafter keep the herd pure from such contamination. 
The following are the main precautions necessary to tnis end: 
i st. Board up the partitions of the stalls at the front so that 
no two cows can feed from the same manger nor lick each other. 
2d. Keep each animal strictly by its own stall and manger. 
3d. When any animal is suspected don’t let it use a drinking 
trough nor bucket in common with other animals. 
4th. Avoid old milch cows and unthrifty ones, or keep them 
secluded from the rest of the herd. 
5th. The following conformation usually indicates a weakness 
of constitution and a susceptibility to tuberculosis : Head narrow 
between the horns, sunken eyes, depth of cavity (temporal) back 
of the eyes, thin narrow ewe neck, chest small, lacking in both 
breadth and depth, hollow flank and tendency to pot belly, a 
general lack of muscle so that the limbs seem loosely attached to 
the body, in breeds that show a variety of colors, animals of the 
lighter shades of brown and yellow. If, however, such animals 
are of high value for the dairy, and can be kept free from infec- 
tion they need not be rejected. The finest conformations of 
shorthorns, Devons, Holsteins, black or red polled furnish no 
protection in the presence of the germ. 148 
Bulletin 65. 
6th. Don’t purchase from a herd in which tuberculosis has 
appeared or in which cattle have died or been killed within a year 
or two. Resort first to the tuberculin test. 
7th. Don’t take a cow with a husky or rattling cough, wheez- 
ing, hurried breathing, discharge from nose, foetid breath, hard 
bunches under the skin, diseased udder, swollen bones or joints, 
unthriftiness, or a tendency to scour or bloat. 
8th. Don’t purchase from city, suburban nor swill stables. 
9th. Don’t add newly purchased cattle to your herd until you 
have tested them with tuberculin, especially if they have been the 
product of inbreeding. 
10th. Don’t admit strange cattle to house, field nor yard with 
your own ; keep them apart until tested with tuberculin. 
nth. In case of disease or unthriftiness in your herd put the 
animal apart and have it examined by a skillful veterinarian. 
12th. If after this there remains any doubt as to the real 
nature of the disease, have the animal tested with the tuberculin, 
in the hands of a practitioner thoroughly acquainted with cattle 
and their diseases. If the result is not yet quite clear keep the 
animal by itself and repeat the test in four weeks. 
13th. In case one animal in a herd shows tuberculosis test the 
whole herd with tuberculin. 
14th. Test in the same manner all animals on the farm (swine, 
goats, sheep, horses, rabbits, cats, dogs, fowls) that cohabit with 
the cattle. 
15th. Kill all tuberculous animals and boil, burn, dissolve in 
acid, or bury deeply in a place to which no animals have access. 
16th. Disinfect premises thoroughly, also all products of the 
diseased animals and all articles used about them. 
17th. Det no consumptive person attend on cattle or other 
live stock, nor prepare their food. 
18th. Vermin (rats, mice, sparrows) in a building where tuber- 
culous animals have been, should be exterminated. 
State Measures for the Prevention and Extinction of 
Tuberculosis in Farm Animals. 
The best, most effective, and economical measures for the sup- 
pression of tuberculosis are those which naturally devolved on Tuberculosis. 
149 
the State. It does not follow, however, that State interference 
will exonerate the stockowner from his personal duty in taking 
the precautions laid down for him above. It is the duty of the 
State to see that all such precautions are enforced, together with 
others that transcend the power of the individual stockowner, and 
must be undertaken by the governing power for the public good. 
Among these may be named the following : 
i st. The providing of municipal slaughter houses in which 
alone farm animals designed for human food can be slaughtered. 
2d. Exclusion from the home market of all dressed, salted 
and canned meats, that have not passed a crucial examination at 
the time of slaughter by an accomplished government veterinary 
inspector. 
3d. Government stamping and labelling of all canned meats 
that have passed the municipal inspection and can be guaranteed 
as from nontubercular animals. 
4th. Forbid the use for pigs, fowls or other animals of all 
milk furnished by tuberculous animals, and of all offal or other 
products of slaughter-houses until they shall have been boiled for 
one hour. 
5th. Provide for the systematic inspection by skilled and relia- 
ble veterinary practitioners, of all dairy herds and primarily of 
such as furnish milk for immediate use as sweet milk. 
6th. If tuberculous cattle or other animals are found in a herd, 
have the remainder tested with tuberculin, and have all affected 
cattle appraised, killed, and, without delay or further expense, 
paid for by the State. 
7th. Appraisers may be chosen one for the State and one for 
the owner, or better, to secure a more even handed justice, all 
alike should be valued by two State appraisers chosen for their 
knowledge of animals and their values, and for their integrity. 
8th. Indemnities should be paid without delay on presentation 
of the affidavits of the stockowner, the inspector and the State 
appraisers. 
9th. The precautions prescribed for private owners under the 
headings 9 to 15, and 18 should be carried out under the super- 
vision of State officers. 
10th. Disinfection of all contaminated premises and objects 150 
Buleetin 65. 
should be done at State expense and by a special disinfecting 
corps under a trained, careful and thorough foreman. 
nth. Attendants on cattle or other meat producing animals, 
who show any chronic disease of the air passages, lungs or bowels, 
should be examined for tuberculosis, by the municipal or town 
health officer, and their expectoration should be tested bacterio- 
logically. If found to be tuberculous they must be forbidden to 
continue this occupation. 
12th. Though herds have been tested and guaranteed sound, 
such guarantee must lapse as soon as new animals are introduced 
into them from public markets or untested herds. The guaran- 
tee may be preserved by having all such additions tested by tuber- 
culin before they are added to the herd. 
13th. In making tests with tuberculin the inspector will, as a 
rule, omit cases that are suffering acutely from other diseases or 
from advanced general tuberculosis, or that are approaching 
otstrum or parturition, such cases must be secluded and tested 
later when there is no such source of fallacy. 
14th. All deaths in inspected and attested herds should be 
promptly reported to the government veterinary inspector of the 
district, who should make a careful post mortem examination and 
if he finds tuberculosis in even a latent form, the whole herd 
should be again tested with tuberculin. 
Defects of the Existing New York Law. 
New York is to be highly commended for taking an advanced 
position in the suppression of tuberculosis by process of law. It 
is to be regretted, however, that excellent intentions have been 
somewhat marred from a lack of acquaintance with the diseases 
of the lower animals, by those who have drawn and those who 
directed the administration of the law. It may not be altogether 
useless to name some of the more obvious defects in the law as 
hitherto in force. 
A. The Provision for Two Separate Veterinary Sani- 
tary Boards. 
By existing law tuberculosis and glanders are dealt with by,the 
State Board of Health, while all other diseases affecting the same Tuberculosis. 
151 
genera of animals are placed under the supervision of the Com- 
missioner of Agriculture. The inspector under both central 
authorities ought to be a veterinary comparative pathologist ac- 
quainted with the whole range of animal diseases in order to deal 
with one—say tuberculosis—to the exclusion of other affections, 
and yet when he meets with another contagious disease he is help- 
less to do anything in the matter, and so are his superiors; appli- 
cation must be made to another department, which must send its 
own inspectors, though an entirely capable government employe 
is already on the ground, and an entirely new set of machinery 
must be set in motion to accomplish what could have been done 
far more promptly, effectively and cheaply by the inspector and 
bureau which were already in the field. Two bureaus with their 
officers and records are delegated to do work which naturally 
belongs in one, and delay, inefficiency and unnecessary outlay can 
be the only results of such an extraordinary distribution of 
functions. 
B. Deeay in Killing the Diseased. 
When an animal is condemned as tuberculous, it is not in the 
power of the inspector to at once suppress the danger, by seeing 
to the destruction of the beast; he must report to his superior in 
Albany and recive his order before he can go a step farther. The 
enforced delay hinders him from attending to other cases promptly 
and greatly enhances the cost of the work. By employing trust- 
worthy inspectors only, allowing them to dispose of the sick and 
dangerous at once, and having their reports checked by the affi- 
davits of the owners and appraisers, the work can be rendered far 
more effective and economical. 
C. No Provision for Approved Appraisers. 
The law says the condemned animals shall be appraised, but fails 
to say how, and in the past the owner of the stock had to chose his 
own appraisers and the claims based on such appraisements 
naturally came up for liquidation under a cloud of discredit as hav- 
ing been made by men acting in the interest of the stockowner. 
No wonder that in some cases the loser of a tuberculous animal Bulletin 65. 
152 
found that the cost of establishing his claim amounted to more 
than the claim was worth. Two appraisers mutually chosen for 
State and stockowner, or still better, two honorable State appraisers 
who shall make affidavit to each estimate of value will do evener 
and more substantial justice to the owner of the stock, and the 
appraisement will come up for liquidation without the suspicion 
that attaches to such documents under the present system. If 
these are judiciously selected for skill and integrity, their awards, 
backed by the affidavits of the owner and inspector, will come to 
the disbursing officer with the best possible guarantee of their 
justice. 
I). Reference to the Court of Claims. 
By the present law every award for animals killed must be con- 
sidered and allowed by the Court of Claims. The object is to 
secure justice, but it is manifest that the precaution begins too 
late. The Act leaves the owner to select his own appraisers, and 
unscrupulous persons may conspire to secure an excessive award 
in spite of the best efforts of the Court, who have never seen the 
animals valued, and can only act on the evidence furnished. The 
way is open therefore, for the unprincipled to prey on the State, 
while the man of principle correspondingly suffers. The remedy 
is to have appraisers, state officers and trustworthy men, in which 
case their decision will be at once more intelligent, fair, and 
equitable, than any revision that can possibly be made by a court 
sitting at a distance, however able and honorable its judges may be. 
E. Dei,a.y in Paying Indemnities. 
As a necessary consequence of the reference to the Court of 
Claims, much time is lost in preparing the case and in waiting the 
turn of the particular entry on the list. As a rule hearings have 
been had from nine to twelve months after the slaughter of the 
animals. This is no real advantage to the State which is saddled 
with the attendant Court expenses. It is often a serious matter to 
the stockowner, who is thus kept out of his source of livlihood, or 
has to borrow and pay interest on the money-value of the animals 
killed. Knowing the consequences of such delay, and that in Tuberculosis. 
153 
addition to this they must expend considerable money in preparing 
and presenting their claims before the Court, and in furnishing 
witnesses, many prefer to make no report of the disease to the 
authorities but to deal with it themselves. If men of high 
principle they personally bear all the losses, but if not, they too 
often send the diseased animals to market and thus provide for 
the starting of new centres of infection, or they slaughter them 
and sell the carcasses as human food. Thus the system of indem- 
nification, surrounded, as it is by delays and uncertainties, becomes 
a means of spreading instead of restricting or extirpating the 
affection. 
With the obvious safeguards of the affidavits of worthy men act- 
ing as inspectors and appraisers, for the State, and with the 
endorsement of their superior officer, payments could be made 
promptly, and the dread of serious loss would no longer deter 
stockowners from cooperating heartily with the State in the puri- 
fying of their herds. Relieve the owner of the present vexatious 
delays, of the legal and court expenses and the State will be fur- 
nished with a powerful lever for the work of suppressing the 
contagion. 
F. No Provision for Efficient Disinfection. 
The existing law provides no definite means for the disinfection 
of contaminated premises, and, therefore, this most essential duty 
is thrown upon the owner to accomplish at his own expense and 
too often in his own way. Yet the extreme measure of killing 
the infecting or diseased animal entails the imperative duty of 
thoroughly disinfecting the place where such animal has been. 
Without this the expropriation and killing is a comparatively 
futile procedure. In the hands of an inexperienced farmer the 
attempt at disinfection is far more likely to be insufficient than 
complete, and if imperfect all or much of the trouble and expense 
has been thrown away. In all veterinary sanitary work, looking 
toward the extinction of a contagion, the work must be of a very 
radical nature, and if it fails in this it may be looked on as practi- 
cally a failure. Restriction of the disease there may be without 
this, but extinction, never. With mere restriction outlay for pre- Bulletin 65. 
vention must go on forever; with extinction it will be brought to 
a final end. 
To be effective, disinfection should be made the work of trained 
state officials. There is no more reason why this should be 
charged on the stock owner than that he should bear alone the 
money loss of his animals. Both are means of the extinction of 
the contagion with the one object of the public good. 
G. No Provision for Systematic Work. 
The existing law fails to provide means for dealing with tuber- 
culosis in all parts of the state, or to enjoin that the limited 
means provided shall be applied in a systematic manner upon 
any given area. Attention is therefore given to the herds whose 
owners make special application for inspection and those that are 
reported by others, and thus the inspectors are to-day in West- 
chester county, to-morrow in Erie, and the next in Tioga or 
Oswego. Single reported herds are dealt with and the great bulk 
of stock in the same district are passed over unnoticed. Is it to 
be wondered that complaints of partiality are heard ? With the 
utterly inadequate appropriation this condition of things is per- 
haps inevitable, but it is certainly not the way to suppress the 
disease. A system that wipes out the disease on one farm, and at 
once leaves it to be reinfected, from a diseased herd on the next 
place perhaps, is anything but commendable. If the means can 
be afforded to deal with the disease over the entire state, let this 
be done ; but if not then let the appropriation be applied to a 
given geographical district and let this be purified as a whole and 
held so, while the good work is extended to other regions. 
Insufficient Indemnity a Faese Economy. 
In conclusion, it is right to emphasize the importance of a due 
consideration of property rights. Sanitary laws which in any 
way ignore or disregard the rights of property have within them- 
selves the seeds of defeat. If within our municipal abattoir the 
butcher cannot conduct his business as well and economically as 
in his own establishment, he or his competitors will evade the 
law in some way. If the stock owner is not fairly reimbursed for Tuberculosis. 
155 
his animals slaughtered and for other losses sustained for the pro- 
tection of the public health and of the country’s herds, unscrupu- 
lous men will find ample means of trading off the as yet incipient 
and occult cases of tuberculosis, and thereby planting the infection 
widely in new herds. Compensation must stop short of making 
the sanitary bureau a profitable customer for tuberculous animals 
at sound prices, but it must be so liberal as to enlist the ready 
cooperation of the stock owner in having every infected beast 
safely disposed of. Cases of advanced generalized tuberculosis 
may in all justice be listed at a low rate, as they are in every 
sense unfit to live, and are an expense, a danger and a nuisance 
even when dead. Cases too that have just been imported from 
another state or country and which are either manifestly diseased 
or taken from a tuberculous herd may fairly be excluded from 
indemnity and above all from a liberal indemnity. But in nearly 
every herd the majority of the stock condemned are to all out- 
ward appearances sound animals, and the owner has had no sus- 
picion concerning them until this has been betrayed by the tuber- 
culin test. But for that he would have gone on utilizing the 
animals in perfect good faith, and his customers would have 
received the dairy products in all confidence as to their whole- 
someness. Had he wished to sell these animals for the dairy or 
for beef, he would have found plenty of purchasers at sound 
market rates. If the stock were thoroughbred and their progeny 
of a high prospective value he could have continued to breed from 
them for years since calves are rarely born tuberculous—not once 
in many thousand births even from tuberculous parents—and thus 
he might have largely profited by raising them on the milk of 
healthy cows. Then again in country districts the owner must 
bear the cost of disposing of the carcass by burning or burial in 
some place to which other animals do not have access. Further, 
the essential work of disinfecting the premises is at present put 
on the shoulders of the stockowner. Once more, if the stock- 
owner is a dairyman, his trade is injured by the condemnation 
of animals in his herd. Customers will suddenly change to other 
dairies, creameries will be closed against his milk, and health 
officers are likely to quarantine the product, at least between the 
condemnation and slaughter. Apart from this his home supply 156 
Bulletin 65. 
of milk is lessened and to keep his customers he must go into the 
market and buy milk from others. 
It is quite evident that in many cases of dairy herds and of 
valuable thoroughbred animals, an indemnity amounting to even 
the sound market value of the animals killed comes far short of 
reimbursing the owner for his actual losses. 
These considerations should be taken fully into account, before 
adopting any proposal to fix a maximum sum or rigid rule for 
estimating values. The wording of the present law ‘ ‘ the actual 
value ’ ’ is perhaps as good as any, only provision should be made 
to have able and incorruptible appraisers, and a restricting clause 
might be introduced to prohibit or minimize awards for animals 
recently introduced into the State. 
Disinfection should as a rule be done by State employes, thus 
relieving the stockowner of the expense and securing effective 
results. The disposal of carcasses may also in many cases be 
justly charged on the State. This cannot be an entering wedge 
for corruption, as excessive indemnity would be, and yet it would 
relieve the stockowners of an outlay that should be met by the 
public at large. 
The disposal of infected manure and other products must be 
under the direction of the inspector, but must evidently be under- 
taken by the stockowner himself. 
Points like the above cannot be too strongly insisted on, as they 
determine success or failure. In the extinction of cattle lung- 
plague in the United States the strict attention to such accessories 
proved the main factors in the speedy success. In Cook Co., 
111., I took charge of the work on behalf of the United States 
Government in April, 1887, and in July we had done away with 
the last acute case of the disease. But the whole city was sys- 
tematically purged, stable by stable, no communication between 
sick and healthy was possible, condemned cattle were quickly 
disposed of, and in two weeks each owner received from Wash- 
ington a check for the amount of his indemnity ; thorough disin- 
fection was affected by a government corps so that no stable 
ever needed to be disinfected a second time, and effective meas- 
ures were taken to prevent the introduction of new cattle from 
infected localities. No state was ever so speedily cleared of this Tuberculosis. 
157 
disease and the result must be altogether attributed to the care- 
fulness of the methods, and their thorough application, and not 
least to fair indemnities and the promptitude of their payment. 
Great Britain has been struggling with the same disease for fifty 
years, and though she slaughters the sick, yet for lack of other 
efficient measures she cannot yet show a clean bill of health.