Z76 

 DIVISION OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



Honolulu, November 30, 1913. 

 Hon. W. AI. Giffard, 



President, Board of Agriculture and Forestry. 



Dear Sir: — Reporting on the work of the Division of Animal 

 Industry for the past month, I beg to say that the fourth annual 

 test of the dairy cattle of the City and County of Honolulu has 

 been finished, a detailed account of the same being submitted in 

 the appended report of the assistant territorial veterinarian. 



From this it will be seen that while it cannot be claimed that 

 bovine tuberculosis has been entirely eradicated, it must be 

 granted that the infection has been reduced to a minimum un- 

 attained in any other community of similar size and composition, 

 and during the comparatively short period of four years. In cer- 

 tain sections of Europe, notably in Denmark, bovine tuberculosis 

 has been eradicated in a number of counties or communities by 

 means of the Bang method, so named after its originator. Prof. 

 B. Bang of the Royal Veterinary College of Copenhagen, and 

 which consists in the absolute segregation, on the same farm, of 

 healthy from tuberculous (reacting) animals, only those clinically 

 affected being destroyed, the apparently sound reactors being con- 

 tinued for dairy and breeding purposes until they develop clinical 

 symptoms or until the milk is proved to contain tubercle bacilli. 

 In the meantime the milk from the reacting animals is carefully 

 pasteurized, whether for human consumption as milk, butter or 

 cheese, or for the raising of the calves, the latter being removed 

 from their mothers immediately after birth. This method is ex- 

 ceedingly slow and very expensive as it requires the establishment 

 of two entirely separate dairies, as well as separate dairy attend- 

 ants, and can only be applied to advantage where the question is 

 to preserve a valuable breed or strain of dairy cattle which could 

 not otherwise be replaced. In some cases it has taken from 15 

 to 20 years to rid a large estate of the disease, the infection, in 

 spite of every precaution, being transmitted repeatedly from the 

 diseased to the healthy herd. It will therefore be seen that while 

 the method obviates the immediate destruction of all reactors, it 

 is so expensive and so uncertain as to be resorted to only in the 

 case of valuable animals, or families, which perhaps have been 

 developed only by means of careful selection and systematic 

 breeding through numerous generations. 



The only other case available for comparison is that of the 

 District r)f Columbia, where the federal Bureau of .Animal In- 

 dustry, in 1909, decided to investigate the jM-evalence of bovine 

 tuberculosis for the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility of 

 the control and, ultimately, the eradication of the disease from a 

 given territory. To quote from the Year Book of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture for 1912, referring to the above mentioned 

 case, vvc read : 



