Tuberculosis 119. 



be obtained from Z. D, Gillman, Washington, D. C. Veterinary supply 

 houses on the last pages of this book have outfits and vaccine for sale. 

 Black leg vaccine can be bought at nearjy all drug stc\res if it must 

 be obtained immediately. The sooner the well animals of an infected 

 herd are vaccinated the more calves there will be saved. 



TUBERCULOSIS 



{Consumption of Cattle) 



CAUSES AND GENERAL DISCUSSION 



Tuberculosis effects praicticall(y .-^11 domestic animals, but cattle, 

 hags and poultry seem to be more susceptible to tubq|rculosis than other 

 farm animals. The disease is caused by a bacteria about .00005905 of 

 an inch wide and about .0001181 of an inch in length, which is about 

 the average size of bacteria. Such a minute organism is visible only 

 with a modern high powered microscope. Tuberculosis is vefry rare, 

 among cattle that range on the plains. Not that plain cattle are immune 

 but its frequency increases in proportion to the amount the cattle aire 

 confined and housed. Therefore it is more frequent among dairy herds 

 than beef herds. However, it does not follow that beef cattle are never 

 effected, for when the tuberculin test is applied, a much higher per cent 

 of beef cattle react than is generally supposed by the uninformed public. 

 Some of the very best beef herds of the oarn belt have been found to be 

 rotten with tuberculosis. 



One effected cow introduced into a healthy herd of confined cattle 

 may infect a herd of either beef or dairy cattle, until as many as eighty 

 per cent of the cattle will react lo the tuberculin test. 



Cattle effected with tuberculosis throw the germs out of the body 

 with the expired air, bowel passages and when the udder is effected the 

 tubercular bacteria are in the milk before it leaves the animal body. 



About seventy-five per cent of the catile jeacting over which post 

 miortems have been held have shown tuberculosis of the lungs. It is pro- 

 bable that the bacteria enter the animal's body more often with the in- 

 spired air than by any other course, although it is not necessarily so. 

 When we consider that all organs of the body except the teeth have been 

 found tubercular, it naturally follows that an effected organ is not neces- 

 sarily the route by which the geims have entered the body. 



