STATE DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 355 



demned on account of tuberculosis. All investigations have shown that 

 wherever cattle have been housed and exchanged from herd to herd 

 for any length of time tuberculosis has become prevalent. 



GENERAL SPREAD THREATENED. 



For years past Missouri has been in the front ranks in breeding pure- 

 bred beef cattle. Today the dairy industry is being developed with much 

 rapidity, and a great number of people are going into the dairy business 

 and founding dairy herds. Beef and dairy herds are being established 

 and individuals being changed from herd to herd and the herds are be- 

 ing kept under the same identical conditions as have prevailed in the 

 older states of this country, and in European countries where tubercu- 

 losis has become so prevalent among cattle as to amount to a scourge. 

 Unless the breeders of cattle take some precaution, which has not 

 heretofore been employed, there is but one inevitable result, and that is 

 the general spread of tuberculosis among our cattle. It is not a matter 

 of prophecy to say that we need only to go on as others have done, and 

 as we are doing today, for a few years, and we will get the same results 

 that have been obtained in other states and older countries. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DISEASE. 



In order that we may go about the control of tuberculosis in an in- 

 telligent manner it is necessary for us to thoroughly understand three im- 

 portant facts, namely: (i) Tuberculosis is contagious. (2) It is 

 seldom, if ever hereditary. (3) The disease does not necessarily affect 

 the lungs, but may affect Sny organ of the body. The general impres- 

 sion regarding tuberculosis is that it is a non-contagious disease — a sort 

 of inescapable curse. In handling herds of cattle we have had ex- 

 perience with a number of herds where the introduction of one or more 

 diseased animals spread tuberculosis rapidly in the herd. In one case in 

 particular five tuberculous cows were introduced into a dairy, and in six 

 months' time 51 others had contracted tuberculosis. This same thing 

 happens wherever cattle with tuberculosis are introduced into a healthy 

 herd, and I could give numerous instances and call the names of owners 

 of cattle where this very thing has happened in this State. If the dis- 

 eased animal had not been admitted into the herd the disease would not 

 have been present. 



ITS HEREDITY CONTROVERTED. 



As to the heredity of tuberculosis, we can only say that "among the 

 many investigations all over the world, including thousands of post- 

 mortems, the records show only 70 calves that were diseased shortly after 



