96 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



no further need of efforts to repress this disease in herds. Such 

 opinions are otfered by men who have no kuo\vledy,e or appreciation 

 of the extent to wliicli cattle owners are injured by tuberculosis 

 among their animals. There is no disease of cattle that causes so 

 much loss as tuberculosis. This is true not only in I'enusylvania but, 

 ■we have the words of Bang and Nocard for it, it is true also in the 

 older parts of the world, where such malignant and rapid diseases 

 as rinderpest, pleuropneumonia and foot and mouth diseases pre- 

 vail. The losses from this disease are great enough to justify much 

 greater effort and expense than are now authorized. If the fighl 

 against tuberculosis of cattle were to stop because one bacteriologist 

 claims that the disease is not transmissible to man, then there is no 

 ground for public measures to suppress contagious pleuro-pneu- 

 monia of cattle, Texas fever, hog cholera, contagious abortion, or 

 the San Jose scale. 



The duty to repress the contagions diseases of animals is recog- 

 nized as a public duty in every civilized country of the world, and 

 in every State in the United States, and for the reason that it is 

 essential to the welfare of the public that such diseases shall be sup- 

 pressed and it is impossible for the individual to do it. 



I wish to record the fact that since the general discussion of 

 Koch's dogma, the number of voluntary applications for herd tests 

 has not fallen. There is as much desire now for herd tests as before. 

 This appears to indicate that Koch's views have failed to find accept- 

 ance among cattle owners or that their purpose in eradicating tu- 

 berculosis is economic rather than for the protection of the health of 

 the people. 



In relation to glanders, the contest this year has been a little more 

 strenuous. Twenty-one glandered horses and mules have been found 

 and destroyed. In nearly all cases these were animals that had been 

 recently brought into the State or had been infected by such animals. 



The work of the laboratory during the yeai' has been most valuable. 

 The accurate, scientific control of the general field work that this 

 agency has rendered possible has been of incalculable benefit. Ques- 

 tions of diagnosis in respect to animals that are dead can sometimes 

 be solved only by the aid of the bacteriologist and pathologist; that 

 is, b}^ the aid of a properly manned and equipped laboratory. To 

 leave such questions without full solution, would mean, in some 

 cases, the loss of information that would make it possible to prevent 

 similar disease in the future or, in other cases, the taking of more or 

 less burdensome and expensive precautions that are unnecessary. 



For example, by ordinary method of post-mortem examination, it 

 may not be possible to determine whether a given animal has died of 

 anthrax. If, on account of this lack of information, no special pre- 

 cautions shall be taken with an anthrax carcass this disease raav 



