farmers' institutes. 271 



for the well established reason that raw flesh serves as change of diet 

 and stimulates to greater thriftness. If such animal has died of tuber- 

 culosis, the swine which feed upon it are quite likely to contract the dis- 

 ease and prove not only a loss of the animals directly involved, but also 

 spread contagion to others. 



The carcass of a tuberculous animal may be rendered serviceable as 

 food for swine if it is thoroughly cooked, and the milk from a tubercu- 

 lous cow may be rendered harmless by boiling. Such cooking and boil- 

 ing destroys the tubercular germs, but does not destroy the food value 

 of the milk or flesh. 



In a former statement your attention was called to the relative pre- 

 valence of tuberculosis in cattle and mankind. This close association of 

 the disease is a clinical fact which must impress every thinking man re- 

 gardless of any theories which may be promulgated. Tuberculosis in 

 man is spoken of as the "great white plague,'' and surely it is for more 

 than lo per cent of all the deaths in human kind, where statistics are kept, 

 is accredited to this disease. It is possible that in large per cent of cases 

 the disease is communicated from one person to another, by cohabitation 

 and the lack of care in promptly rendering inert the spittle of the con- 

 sumptive. That the milk from tuberculous cows is another source of in- 

 fection will not be doubted by those who have investigated the large num- 

 ber of instances in which children and adults have died of this disease 

 and in which instances tuberculous cows were the only discoverable source 

 of infection. I feel confident that no Missouri dairyman would for a 

 moment consent to permit the milk of a tuberculous cow to be used as 

 food in his own family or to be sold for food to other persons if he real- 

 ized the great danger from the use of such milk. 



]\Iany eastern dairymen whose herds were infected, have weeded 

 out all the infected animals, have disinfected their stables and inclosures,' 

 and re'juvenated their herds by adding only cows which were free from 

 tuberculosis. This weeding out process and procuring animals free from 

 this disease, has been accomplished by the use of tuberculin as a testing 

 agent. By this agent it is possible to detect tuberculous animals which 

 give no outward signs of the disease, and makes quite certain the diagnosis 

 in cases where the symptoms are not well marked, yet the disease be sus- 

 pected because the animals have been exposed to infection. This plan has 

 been thoroughly tested and proven effective, and I commend it to you as 

 a means of protecting the lives of your families and customers and con- 

 serving your finances through prevention of loss of your animals and 

 their products. 



