VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 143 



advanced that it can be detected very readily upon physical 

 examination. These exceptions can not be used as objections to 

 the utility of tuberculin, and do not depreciate its value in the 

 slightest degree. It also occasionally happens that some animals 

 but slightly affected with disease will not react, or animals which 

 upon post-mortem appear perfectl}' healthy have shown reaction. 

 The eminent veterinarian Nocard and others, however, claim 

 that, in all cases in which very careful post-mortem examinations 

 have been made upon animals which had reacted to the tubercu- 

 lin test but did not show marked post-mortem lesions, they have 

 demonstrated that the germ of the disease was present in the 

 system and had just begun its development. To prove this the 

 most careful bacteriological examination and inoculation tests are 

 necessary. The tuberculin test, it is true, is not infallible, but 

 the mistakes that may occur from its use are so few and it is so 

 much more nearly perfect than any other method that we have at 

 hand that for practical purposes it may be considered sure. 

 While it may be many years before tuberculosis can be practically 

 eradicated from herds, and while it would require many stringent 

 State and national regulations to succeed in stamping it out, 

 nevertheless by the use of tuberculin and proper methods of 

 disinfection of stables and other localities which have been 

 infected by diseased animal, it will be possible in a compara- 

 tively short time to greatly reduce the number of cases of this 

 disease. Dr. Pearson's report to the Pennsylvania board of 

 health indicates a reduction of 33 per cent, in cases of tubercu- 

 losis in that State. 



As tuberculosis in animals is reduced so will the disease in 

 man be proportionately decreased. There is every evidence to 

 prove conclusively that man may be infected with tuberculosis 

 by drinking the milk from tuberculous animals. Recent work, 

 combined with many experiments that have been conducted in 

 past years, has shown that the tubercle germ of human origin 

 or the tubercle germ of animal origin can adapt itself very 

 readily to its surroundings and grow upon different varieties of 

 media and at different temperatures without its pathogenic or 

 disease-producing properties being destroyed. 



It was claimed for a long time that the human tubercle ba- 

 cillus was not pathogenic for birds. Very recently, however, 

 Nocard has shown that if a culture of the human bacillus be 

 placed in a collodion sack and this sack introduced into the 

 peritoneal cavity of a chicken, after four weeks or more the 

 germ will have assumed the appearance of the avian bacillus 

 and will have become pathogenic for chickens. Again, the 

 tubercle germ has been recently isolated from carp. It was 

 demonstrated very conclusively that these carp were infected 

 from the sputum of a badly tuberculous individual, which spu- 



