294 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



upon which it will cleveloj) favorably, and then you can see tliese 

 what were originally microscopic organisms, you can see them 

 grow, because there are many millions of them in a flask of culture 

 upon which these bugs are grown, and then they appreciate them- 

 selves, they get together collectively; but you cannot see one with 

 your naked eye; you have got to use a microscope, and then they only 

 appear as a very slight rod. Then we have this by-products of the 

 growth, you might say, of tliese tuberculosis organisms, which is 

 tuberculin. It is a well-known fact that tuberculin, when injected 

 subcutaneously into a cow, is the best diagnostic agent we have for 

 the detection of tuberculosis. Now you all know that a tuberculous 

 cow, except when she is in an advanced stage of tuberculosis, does 

 not go around with a sign on her that "I am tuberculous." It does 

 not give you, under ordinary conditions, any notice that your cow 

 has tuberculosis; but, nevertheless, she may, and she may be able 

 to disseminate, to breathe out the seeds of this disease which, when 

 taken up by another animal, that animal might develop the disease, 

 depending, of course, upon certain physical conditions of the animal. 

 There is another way which has been advocated, of late, to a very 

 great degree, as a sort of a way to suppress tuberculosis. But sup- 

 pressing tuberculosis, in my mind, is not eradicating tuberculosis — 

 and that is by a physical examination of the cow. All of you who 

 have associated with cattle dailv, I should say, are familiar with 

 what symptoms a cow affected with tuberculosis in an advanced 

 stage, should present. Many of you have no doubt put the cows in 

 the field, the dogs have run the cattle, and you would see one cow 

 hump up her bag a little and go "Hoo, hoo, hoo." You know that 

 is a case of tuberculosis in that cow; you can't get away from 

 that; you know it just as well as we do. You know that peculiar 

 cough, that peculiar sound of the cough. You see the expression of 

 the cow. You are better able to notice and appreciate that expres- 

 sion than a stranger, because you see that cow every day, or if not 

 every day, occasionally, and you say to yourself, "There is some- 

 thing the matter with that cow; what is it?" That is a physical 

 case of tuberculosis: you do not need a veterinarian to diagnose a 

 case of that kind, you all diagnose them, yourselves. It is a com- 

 mon practice that when you see a cow come in, down like that as 

 many have done in New York State, they call in the butcher and 

 get ^15, |18, .|20 for a cow like that and away it goes and it is lost 

 sight of. 



The CHAIRMAN: What becomes of it? 



BR. GILL: I don't want to go on record, I don't know. 



A Member: We didn't hear what the question was. 



DR. GILL: The question was what do they do with cattle of that 

 kind? I am sorry to say that in New York State we haven't any 

 State Meat Inspection Law, so there are perhaps opportunities for 

 cows of that kind to be killed in the country abattoirs or slaughter 

 houses, and probably they use the good parts of the meat, I don't 

 know, I don't believe they would use the diseased part. I want to 

 say that it is a physical impossibility which has been demonstrated 

 time and time again for any ordinary man, upon a physical diag- 

 nosis, to pick out all of the open cases of tuberculosis. When I say 



