386 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



prominence it has without this paper's support. The phenomenal growth 

 and improvement in the paper has more than kept pace with the associ- 

 ation. 



Bovine tuberculosis and its relation as a causative factor in human tu- 

 berculosis, is a subject that has engaged the earnest attention of the peo- 

 ple, particularly of the cities, as it relates to the city milk supply, and 

 ordinances intended to exclude the milk of tubercular cows were passed 

 by many of the municipal authorities. These ordinances being submitted 

 to the supreme court were adjudged unconstitutional. It would seem that 

 it is to say the least, unwise for cities to undertake to make laws on this 

 subject until after the state has first made a move in this direction, as it 

 is a question of too large magnitude to be handled by any city, county or 

 possibly even the state without the support of the federal government. 



I also believe that the danger to human life from this cause has been 

 exaggerated, and that the tubercular cow gives tuberculosis milk only 

 when there is a lesion in the udder. And the sick cow gives no milk. If 

 the slaughter of the cow not passing the tuberculin test is to be insisted 

 upon as a public health measure, then the public should bear at least a 

 share of the financial loss incurred thereby, and if the dairy cow, why 

 not all other cattle, as tuberculosis is an infectious disease and your cow 

 would be in constant danger of contracting the disease from her brother, 

 the steer. All that the dairyman asks is a square deal. Why should he 

 be required to submit his herd to the tuberculin test and suffer the loss 

 of those that react when his neighbor is permitted to place untested cattle 

 in an adjoining pasture after he has his herd cleaned up. 



Our legislature should consider this matter at their next session, and we 

 believe that but little headway can be made in the battle against bovine 

 tuberculosis until the owner of the cow is more willing and anxious than 

 any other man to clean up his herd, and laws passed to which he does not 

 subscribe would be a dead letter. His co-operation may be secured only 

 when you. can convince him that it is to his own financial advantage to 

 rid his herd of this disease. That it would pay him, we are convinced. 

 The tuberculosis cow in a herd renders all other cattle in that herd li- 

 able to infection and all hogs following such an animal is pretty sure 

 to contract the disease, and tuberculosis among hogs is a question that 

 the farmers of Iowa should reckon with now, before it becomes more wide- 

 spread. 



Iowa is in a large measure indebted to some of the eastern states for 

 the introduction of this disease into our midst. As a number of years 

 since when this question was agitated in the east, a large number of dairy 

 cows that had reacted to the tuberculin test were shipped into Iowa, par- 

 ticularly in the neighborhood of our cities, and sold to the local dairymen 

 — this in the days before Iowa dairymen had heard anything about tu- 

 berculosis cattle. This agitation has been conducive to much good, as it 

 has aroused the people as nothing else could have done to the danger 

 of using dirty and unsanitary milk. 



Many of us getting into the afternoon of life can easily recall the fact 

 that not more than a score of years ago, if there were three or four boys 



