jecting with tuberculin, inspecting, ear-marking or branding a 

 few thousand half wild cows is gone through with, regularly, 

 once a year. As tuberculosis occurs but very rarely among this 

 class of animals, and as the quantity of milk obtained from 

 them is too small to pay for the cost of the labor required the 

 undertaking might, except for the gentling of the calves, be con- 

 sidered philanthropic, were it not for the few centers of tuber- 

 culous infection which thereby have been removed from these 

 otherwise healthy herds. At any rate the tuberculin testing of 

 such a large number of temporary milch cows, with only a frac- 

 tion of one per cent, of infected animals among them, has caused 

 a decided reduction in the figure of final results, highly satis- 

 factory, though to a certain extent misleading. In other words 

 the percentage of infection with bovine tuberculosis on the island 

 of Oahu is annually lowered nearly one per cent, by counting 

 the cows of the railroad ranches as dairy cattle instead of range 

 cattle. At the present time, for instance, with all actual dairy 

 herds tested, the percentage of infection is well above 4, though 

 not reaching 4.5. With the railroad cows added, this figure will 

 probably be reduced to between 3 and 3.5, which fact it has 

 seemed desirable to emphasize in view of the unusual conditions 

 discussed in my last report and which were responsible for the 

 advance of this figure from 2.88 of last year. 



In response to an invitation from the Hawaiian Medical Asso- 

 ciation a paper entitled, "Bovine Tuberculosis ; Its Economic Im- 

 portance ; Territorial and Municipal Measures of Suppression 

 and Eradication," was read at the annual meeting which was held 

 in Honolulu during the first week of the present month. A copy 

 of this paper is appended herewith for the information of the 

 members of the board, and attention is especially called to the 

 section pertaining to the enormous sum which the milk consum- 

 ing public has paid the milk producers for condemned reacting 

 cows. While the figures quoted (an increase in the price of milk 

 of 2 cents per quart on 9000 quarts daily for five years) are very 

 conservative, the question as to what part of the aggregate should 

 be charged to increased cost of production remains open. Labor 

 has undoubtedly increased in cost, but feed prices have not, so 

 far as can be estimated by a comparison of prices, advanced suf- 

 ficiently to warrant an increase of more than one cent per quart 

 of milk. If this estimate is correct it is found that the consumer 

 has paid an average of about $100 per head for each of the 1500 

 head of condemned reactors, in addition to which the owners 

 have received an average of $25.00 per head for the carcasses. 



The new "Sanitary Code" promulgated by the Territorial 

 Board of Health under date of August 18, 1915, contains a para- 

 graph of great importance to the work of eradicating bovine 

 tuberculosis, in that it requires the tuberculin testing, by a gov- 

 ernment veterinarian, of all dairy cattle in the Territory before 

 a license to sell milk can be issued. In other words, it extends 

 the authority hitherto supplied on the island of Oahu alone by the 



