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 lea.st between the 

 condemnation and slaughter. Apart from this his home supply 



