State Dairy Association. 403 



the simplest precaution to know whether or not the animals he is 

 bringing together are free from tuberculosis. Through this neg- 

 lect, this dreadful disease is getting a foothold in many of the herds 

 of this State, and the loss therefrom, if properly summed up, would 

 require a paper much longer than I dare make this one. 



It is proper now to speak of losses from these diseases as 

 being caused by neglect, for the reason that full directions con- 

 cerning their prevention have been published over and over in 

 farm papers and official bulletins. 



The ultimate loss from tuberculosis is found to amount to more 

 than the loss from all other diseases put together. By the neglect 

 of a very simple precaution the dairyman allows his herd to be- 

 come affected. The disease spreads among the cattle, and slowly, 

 but surely, they succumb to it one by one. The milk from an in- 

 fected herd carries the disease to every animal to which it is fed. 

 The hogs from an infected dairy go to slaughter only to be con- 

 demned and lost. Sooner or later the fact that some dairyman 

 is selling milk from a lot of cows rotten with tuberculosis becomes 

 known, and reflects great discredit upon the dairy industry. Many 

 who are able to pay for milk and are willing to buy it of the dairy- 

 man, are forever turned against its use. Many are scared into 

 attempting to raise children without milk, which is suicidal. The 

 germ of tuberculosis from cattle produces a "virulent type of dis- 

 ease in the other lower animals. Scientists now almost universally 

 concede that the cattle tuberculosis is transmissible to the human. 

 A close study of this subject will drive anyone to the same con- 

 clusion. The indications are, that in the cost from the neglect to 

 prevent tuberculosis among dairy cattle, must be counted a large 

 number of human lives. 



Instructions for the prevention of hog cholera and tuberculosis 

 were given to the public in time to have been made use of during 

 the past five years. In that time the State of Missouri has lost 

 about eight million dollars worth of hogs from cholera. At least 

 three-fourths of this could have been prevented except for the 

 neglect to follow instructions that were plainly given. In the 

 instructions that were published in the market reports and nearly 

 all of the agricultural papers of the State, in September, 1902, it 

 was strongly urged that when stock hogs were brought on to a farm 

 they should be kept in quarantine for thirty days. The neglect to 

 read and heed this particular item of advice has cost the farmers 

 of this State close to $6,000,000 since then. 



Some three years ago an anti-spitting ordinance was passed 



