Seventy-Tiiied Annuae Report 1219 



producers and dealers, are careless or iudifferent or dishonest, that 

 rules and regulations are necessary for the protection of the 

 public as well as that great body of honest dealers and producers. 



Closely allied to this subject are the provisions of the law re- 

 lating to the health of our dairy animals. It would be useless to 

 devote the energies of the state along the lines already indicated 

 unless the animals from which our milk supply comes are in such 

 a physical condition as to ensure a safe and healthy product. And 

 so the state has adopted a plan for the purpose of protecting our 

 dairy animals and eliminating from our herds such animals that 

 by reason of disease are unfit to constitute the source of our milk 

 supply. That tuberculosis exists in our dairy herds to a greater 

 or k^ss extent must be conceded. It is the plain duty of the state 

 to adopt such plans as experience or science may suggest to mini- 

 mize or wholly eliminate danger to our people from this source. 

 It has been doubted whether the state pursued the wisest course 

 when it adopted the policy of making compensation to the owner 

 for such animals which by reason of this disease were deemed 

 unfit and dangerous as a source of milk supply. But that some 

 compensation should be made for such animals as may be con- 

 demned as dangerous and slaughtered, now, however, seems to be 

 the settled policy of the state. Men of science are generally 

 agreed that the tuberculin test will disclose wdtli reasonable ac- 

 curacy the animal sutfering from this disease. Where this test 

 is applied by veterinarians in the employ of the state or by those 

 whose work is approved, the reacting aninuils may either be segre- 

 gated and their milk pasteurized before use, or they may be 

 slaughtered by the state. The tuberculin test has been applied to 

 30,000 dairy animals in the State of Xew York during the past 

 year; a large number, involving a vast amount of work and the 

 expenditure of a very considerable sum of money. There are, 

 however, more than a million aud a half of dairv animals in the 

 state; so that, with all the resources available for this work, only 

 2 per cent, of the entire number was reached. It will thus be 

 seen that the task in which the state has embarked is a most 

 gigantic one and that the progress made has been necessarily com- 

 paratively slow. In view of the importance of this question, men 

 representing all shades of belief and points of view have been en- 



