No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 119 



shall be destroyed. The only thing the public is interested in, in 

 this connection, is that communicable diseases shall not be distri- 

 buted. There is no requirement that tuberculosis cows shall be 

 destroyed so long as they are so maintained that they cannot dis- 

 tribute infection. That is to say so long as they are kept apart 

 from healthy cattle, in quarantine, and the milk is pas- 

 teurized before it is used. Cows in the earliest stages 

 of tuberculosis produce sound calves. These calves re- 

 main sound if they ai'e removed from contact with their 

 tuberculosis mothers soon after birth and are reared on milk free 

 from living tubercle bacilli. The Danish system for controlling tu- 

 berculosis of cattle is based on this knowledge and is very success- 

 ful in practice. 



In this State, there appears to be little opportunity for the utiliza- 

 tion of cows that are known to be infected with tuberculosis, because 

 there is a very restricted market for their milk. The most economi- 

 cal way of using such milk is to pasteurize it, make butter of the 

 cream and feed the skimmed milk to young animals. 



It is as straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel to object 

 to the sale and use of the flesh of animals that show slierht 

 lesions of local tuberculosis, so situated that they may be 

 entirely removed, and destroyed and to permit without 

 objection, the sale and use of the flesh of animals 

 killed in slaughter houses that are not under inspection 

 when it is perfectly well known that many of these animals are af- 

 flicted with tuberculosis in such an advanced form that their flesh 

 would be condemned by a meat inspector, were one present. This 

 question, as to when and under what conditions the flesh of an ani- 

 mal with tuberculosis becomes unvdiolesome, has been studied for 

 a long time by many thoroughly competent investigators. It has 

 been shown, positively, by these researches, that the flesh of tuber- 

 culosis animals is not infectious excepting in advanced cases. All 

 of the official rules on meat inspection that have been adopted in all 

 European countries and in this country, and those that have been 

 approved by the Pennsylvania State Livestock Sanitary Board, call 

 for the condemnation of meat not only where there is a probability 

 but also where there is -a possibility that it may be unwholesome. 

 In other words, it is not passed for use for food if there is a possi- 

 bility that it may be unwholesome. 



Undoubtedly, a very large amount of unwholesome and dangerous 

 tuberculous meat is sold in the markets of the State. But such 

 meats are not prepared in slaughter houses under inspection. It 

 is derived from the carcasses of animals killed surreptitiously in un- 

 inspected slaughter houses. Not only is the unwholesome meat 

 from such animals sold, but the slaughter house is not likey to be 

 cleaned and surely it is not disinfected, so that the flesh of the next 

 animal that is killed there, even if the animal itself be sound, may 

 become contaminated and dangerous to health. 



Reference was made in the report for 1903 as to the desirability 

 of establishing better methods for disposing of cows that are known 

 +0 be infected with tuberculosis. The Stnte Livestock Sanitary 

 Board is not prepared to provide compensation for all of the tuber- 

 culous cattle that are reported. It is still less prepared to provide 

 compensation for all of the tuberculous cattle that might be found 

 if a 8^75tenx^[4c Inspection of dairy herds were instituted. Oonse- 



