TUBERCUI.OSIS IN Cattle. 25 



and fed by the special attendants. Any loss of condition, 

 unthriftiness, cough or scouring on the part of a calf, should be 

 the warrant for separating it from the others and subjecting it to 

 the tuberculin test, and for its destruction in case it shows the 

 tuberculin reaction. 



The cows should also be carefully watched and in case any 

 one develops cough, wheezing, breathlessness on exertion, or 

 other sign of actively advancing tuberculosis it should be at once 

 destroyed as endangering the others by possible reinfection. 

 The whole isolated tuberculous herd should be submitted to the 

 tuberculin test, every three or six months, and individuals w^hich 

 fail to react on two successive tests, and which show all other 

 indications of good health may be held to have recovered and 

 may be restored to the healthy herd. 



A second method is that pursued successfully in the North 

 West Territories. Cows and heifers that have reacted under 

 tuberculin, but which otherwise appear to be in good health, are 

 made into a herd by themselves and placed on a special range 

 apart from all other cattle. They live in the open air with 

 slight shelter in winter and their calves are allowed to suck their 

 dams running with them until winter. The wide range, the 

 open air life, and the early destruction, by sunshine and oxygen, 

 of the discharged microbes, tend in the main to ward off infection 

 except such as comes in the milk, and as a matter of fact the 

 majority of the calves grow up in apparent good health and are 

 fattened and shipped to England. 



The climate of our Southern States affords a better opportunity 

 for this practice than does the semi-arctic northwest. There the 

 ranch cattle living in the open air all the year round show little 

 or no tuberculosis, and w^ith this outdoor life the genial climate 

 wall greatly favor the survival if not the recovery of the slight 

 and latent cases. It should be added that in the stabled cows of 

 the southern cities tuberculosis is ver}^ prevalent. 



