106 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Oft'. Doc. 



the walls had a smooth coating of cemeut, the ceiling was plastered 

 and i)ainted. Between the cows there were stall partitions made of 

 matched, dressed luraber and painted. These partitions kept the 

 cows and theii- feeding places entirely apart. There was no contact 

 between the animals. The stall partitions and all of the wood work 

 within reach of the cows were washed with an antiseptic solution 

 every day. The cows were watered from separate buckets. The 

 other stable was built in the ordinary way. It was lighted by one 

 window and no special arrangement was made for its ventilation. 

 The floor was of hard clay. The cows were held by stanchions and 

 were fed from a feeding floor extending in front of the entire row of 

 stalls. 



''In each stable were placed four healthy and two tubercular cows. 

 The tubercular cows were interchanged from stable to stable every 

 ten days in order to equalize the exposure. 



''The experiment continued 17 months and at its close, it was 

 found by testing the cows with tuberculin and also by post-mortem 

 examinations that all of original healthy cows in the ordinary stable 

 had contracted tuberculosis and two, or one-half, of the originally 

 healthy cows in the model stable had contracted tuberculosis. 



"This experiment tends to show that the conditions which cattle 

 are kept have a decided influence on the spread of tuberculosis. But 

 the experiment shows very clearly that where the stable conditions 

 are very much better than are practicable on any farm, the spread of 

 tuberculosis cannot be wholly prevented, so long as tubercular and 

 healthy cows are permitted to occupy the same stable. 



''Now, if we conclude, as we must, that tuberculosis of cattle is a 

 serious disease, that it is causing burdensome losses, that it is spread- 

 ing w'here effective measures are not enforced against it, that it is 

 not due to local stabling conditions and that its progress in other 

 countries and in certain places in this country justify the expectation 

 that its ravages v.-ill become greater and more burdensome each year, 

 it follows that something should be done to lessen the present and 

 to ward otf the approaching calamity. 



"When we come to the consideraiton of the measures that should 

 be adopted, we again enter a field of controversy. All sorts of plans 

 have been proposed, all sorts have their advocates, but only one class 

 of procedures have been found in practice to be efi!ective. So long as 

 tuberculosis was regarded as due to breeding or heredity it was not 

 repressed. ]Many herds have been bred down from pure blood to 

 mongrel, as by crossing Jersey cows with Ayshire, Simmenthal or 

 Normandy bulls, in the unrealized hope that in this way tuberculosis 

 might be bred out. Many expensive and beautifully constructed 

 stables have been erected for tubercular herds, in the unrealized hope 

 that by improving the sanitary conditions the disease might be 



