EXTRACTS FROM CATTLE COMMISSIONERS' REPORT. . 265 



the Board has been confind to the worst infected part, as there 

 is where boards of heahh have demanded that the most work 

 be done. 



This last year many new sections of the State have been gone 

 over as well as the old districts covered by the Portland milk 

 supply, where testing has been going on for some three years 

 and where the percentage has fallen from 6 to 2%. 



There have been nearly 25,000 head tested the last year, being 

 about 5,000 more than the previous year. Each year sees an 

 increase in this direction. 



The United States government furnish your Commission with 

 tuberculin, free, to help carry on the work, and have expressed 

 their gratification in many ways, at the amount of work beuig 

 done. 



There is at the present time a demand being made by many 

 states that the government take the matter in charge and make a 

 sweeping test of all the live stock in the country, on account of 

 the disinclination of many states to make appropriations. It is 

 not for us in Maine to wait for any such movement to mature, 

 as we are much freer from the disease than any other state in 

 the Union, and should keep so. 



Every government in the civilized world is taking hold of this 

 matter more energetically every year and the late International 

 Congress on Tuberculosis, held in Washington in September, 

 has intensified public interest in this country, to a high degree of 

 endeavor, to eradicate it. 



Your Commissioners believe that the sentiment in this State 

 is in favor of the State paying for the testing of animals, such 

 expense in the past having been borne by the owner, and hav- 

 ing constituted one of the most serious matters of controversy 

 between the owner and the board of health, in the enforcement 

 of its "regulation." 



They would be in favor of the State bearing this expense, 

 whenever it was necessary, or in other words when application 

 was made to the Board by the owner. We believe that such a 

 proposition would be liberally taken advantage of and would be 

 better than an enforced test. When any community through its 

 board of health, demanded an examination of its milk supply, 

 then the Cattle Commission could act, and escape the odium of 

 the enforcement, making friends instead of enemies. There is 



