BoVIXE TUBEECULOSIS. 119 



small, emaciated, worn out cows, weak, decrepid, ill-fed, with a 

 painful, hacking cough, hardly able to walk, pictures of bovine 

 misery and distress^ seeming typical cases of tuberculosis for all 

 appearances, prove upon slaughtering to be entirely free from 

 disease, the lungs sound, the lymphatic langular system normal, 

 or possibly unlooked-for conditions met w hich would account for 

 the animal's decrepid state. If these had been but occasional 

 instances, I would have thought that perhaps a greater experience 

 and a closer observation would disprove views superficially ap- 

 parent; but such has not been the case. 



Tuberculosis in the cow is not a malady readily manifest like 

 pleuro-pneumonia. It lacks the prominent lesions of actinomy- 

 cosis. It is void the acute symptomatology of splenic apoplexy 

 or anthrax. The signs which denote the presence of an acute 

 disorder are absent. It does not run a rapid course through vari- 

 ous stages, but is a disease slow in character, with symptoms ir- 

 regular and often ill-defined. Sometimes the presence of all the 

 symptoms in prominent forms seems to make the diagnosis 

 simple, yet a post-mortem examination reveals no trace of the 

 disease. Tuberculosis is not responsible for the decrepid state of 

 every cow. Other causes — not always diseases — are often re- 

 sponsible for the cow's decline. Naturally appears the question, 

 what conditions and what diseases are mistaken for those of 

 tuberculosis? There are a number of them. Some are of fre- 

 quent occurrence, others are met occasionally. Some present 

 lesions resembling those of the disease with which thev are con- 

 founded, and some present very little similarity when carefully 

 considered. Foreign bodies taken in with the food are responsi- 

 ble for a great deal of bovine distress — far more than one might 

 imagine — and are a very prominent cause of lesions often mis- 

 taken for those of tuberculosis while the animal is alive. We 

 have similar emaciation, a hacking cough, generally unthrifti- 

 ness. Many of the obscure diseases of the cow, her frequent in- 

 dispositions, her occasional cough, her loss of appetite and her 

 different annoying and perplexing actions, arise from the pres- 

 ence of foreign bodies in the stomach and the distress which their 



