364 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



against tuberculosis. Calves three months old or younger are selected 

 for inoculation. 



In regard to this method, the opinion of some of the best veterinari- 

 ans in Germany is that the method is yet too new to pronounce upon its 

 success. That is, it has not had the experimental test of a sufficient 

 number of years under varying conditions, and undei competent ob- 

 servers, who are financially disinterested, to justify its being put on sale 

 for general use as a means of combating tuberculosis in cattle. Whether 

 these calves will resist the natural infection under all circumstances 

 has not yet been proven. Moreover, since these animals have been in- 

 oculated with living human-Uihercle-hacilli, the question naturally arises : 

 Is this not a dangerous procedure for human health ? When these sup- 

 posedly immune calves grow into mature milk cows, may not some dor- 

 mant tubercular focus become active, under the stress of heavy milk- 

 production, and give rise to an infection of the udder and milk? The 

 rendering the animal more resistant to tuberculosis does not neces- 

 sarily mean that such an animal may not bear the germs of tuberculosis 

 in the udder and spread them through the milk. In the disease we call 

 Texas fever, we have an example of perfectly immune cattle carrying 

 germs that are deadly to our northern raised cattle. For my part, I 

 prefer my milk and butter from a dairy which the tuberculin test shows 

 to be free from tuberculosis, rather than from one in which the animals 

 have, during calfhood, been inoculated with living human tubercle bacilli, 

 even though these bacilli have been greatly attenuated. 



While looking at the money side of the dairy business, we should 

 not shut our eyes to the clos.e relation this business bears to the public 

 health. The evidence that human tuberculosis is transmissable to 

 cattle is as firmly established as any other fact can be, and that tuber- 

 culosis of cattle is transmissable to man is scarcely lacking in as strong 

 evidence. The tubercle germs, as found in cattle, are much more viru- 

 lent than those from the human body, as shown by inoculation into cattle 

 and in small experimental animals as rabbits and guinea pigs. And 

 reasoning from these facts, the conclusion is that the tubercle germs 

 from cattle are more dangerous to mankind than the bacilli com- 

 ing from man himself. A direct experiment to demonstrate this is, of 

 course, out of the question. But the evidence of accidental inoculation 

 of persons through wounds, while handling the carcasses of tuberculous 

 cattle, is not lacking. Also, the infection of children of healthy parents 

 from drinking milk supplied by a family cow affected with tuberculosis, 

 has been reported time and time again by careful observers. Dr. 

 Luckey has mentioned the fact that in the slaughter houses there has 



