754 Agricultural Journal of Victoria. 



animals, when in the opinion of the officer supervising the slaughter 

 the disease is merely local not generalized, are allowed to go into 

 consmnption with the exception of such portions as show the 

 lesions of the complaint. This practice is in accord with that 

 prevailing in many parts of the world where attention has been 

 paid to the matter, it being considered that the heat required in 

 one or other of the processes of cooking to which the flesh of animals 

 is submitted would be sufficient to destroy the few bacilli present. 

 This, with the value of the animal as an article of food, being 

 considered as sufficient reason why carcases in which generalized 

 tuberculosis is not present should go into consumption, although 

 many high authorities are of opinion that an animal in any way so 

 afl:'ected should not be allowed to be used as food for man. In the 

 United Kingdom the Board of Agriculture, founded in 1889, has, as the 

 result of the recommendations of the Departmental Committee which 

 met by the direction of the Privy Council in 1888, taken active 

 measures to stamp it out, and among other recommendations was that 

 power be given to inspectors to slaughter for this disease as for 

 pleuro-pneumonia. In Germany the same conditions relative to the 

 use of meat from such animals prevail as in this State, as also in 

 France, Italy, Denmark, Austria, and the United States of America. 

 This disease being as I have already stated in some instances 

 hereditary, and as preventive measures are much more satisfactory 

 in dealing with it than curative, it is well to begin at the fountain 

 head (1) by not breeding from any animals which there are reasons to 

 believe are affected, (2) by the early slaughter of animals the progeny 

 of stock which have been found to be so affected, (3) by the isolation 

 of any beast which there is reason to believe is so diseased, and 

 the speedy slaughter of such an animal. 



In proof of the heredity of this complaint, an instance recently 

 came under my observation in this way. An officer of my branch 

 condemned a newly calved cow for tuberculosis, which on 

 autopsy proved the truth of his diagnosis. Feeling suspicious that 

 the calf may have inherited the disease, he purchased and killed 

 it, not content with naked eye examination which rendered the fact 

 patent enough. Some portions were submitted to Dr. Bull for 

 bacteriological examination, and were found by him after patient 

 investigation to be highly involved with tubercular deposits, and as 

 the calf was but two days' old at the time of slaughter, this gentleman 

 in his report was decidedly of opinion that the disease was contracted 

 by it from the mother prior to its birth. Treatment as I have 

 stated, unless in the very early stages, is useless. Calcification of 

 the affected tissue will sometimes set in, and while causing a local 

 death of the parts is a reparative process, and prevents the further 

 spread of the disease in at least such portions of the animal's 

 structure. Whilst engaged in the preparation of Professor Koch's 

 Tuberculin, Merck of Darmstadt (see Veterinarian, June, 1900) 

 found that, by subjecting the bacteria in glycerinated bouillon to a 

 greater heat than was required to produce the tuberculin, there was 

 a diminution of the poison in it to what there was in that prepared at 



