Bovine Tuberculosis. 



CONDITIONS MISTAKEN FOR THE DISEASE. 



By Dr. William J. Murphy, New York City. 



The subject of bovine tuberculosis has received a great deal of 

 attention from physicians and veterinarians alike for many years, 

 and of the many animal ills it is probably the one most frequently 

 discussed, yet the least understood. Because of the prevalence 

 of tuberculosis in mear-producing animals and the possibility of 

 transmission from animal to man, the disease should be most care- 

 fully studied and investigated. Proper precautions should be 

 exercised to prevent its spread, and various sanitary measures 

 adopted which should aim to free the bovine tribe from the ter- 

 rible scourge with which it has so long been afflicted. 



No doubt the cow and her diseases are closely allied to many 

 human ills, and facts tend to prove that the disease tuberculosis 

 in man and animals is identical. In the human subject the dis- 

 ease is not at all times readily diagnosed, and frequently other 

 conditions with apparently similar manifestations are mistaken 

 for it. The same is true with the disease and its diagnosis 

 in animals. At times its existence in the live animal is very 

 questionable, and conclusions hastih' drawn often lack veri- 

 fication upon a subsequent post-mortem examination. I have 

 seen it generalized in the young steer, where its presence was 

 never suspected and was seemingly in perfect health. I have 

 seen it in the blooded bull, where the tubercular matter had per- 

 meated every tissue and organ of the body, yet by no manifesta- 

 tion was the disease revealed until the animal was butchered for 

 food. 



Thus it is evident that tuberculosis can exist without its pres- 

 ence being known. On the other hand. I have seen very many 



