454 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



searching with microscopic power, and which, if* fed to ani- 

 mals for consecutive weeks or months, or forced into their 

 blood, may be made to incubate ; but this process ia purely 

 artificial, simply showing what scientific skill may accomplish. 

 It is utterly unlike the processes of nature in the movement 

 of the germ from subject to subject, where a personal defence 

 can be made, or, if need be, assistance given in prevention 

 or, resistance. 



Again, uneasiness if not alarm has been created by the 

 oft-repeated statement that this disease is certainly hereditary. 

 Facts to contradict this are abundant and pointed. At the 

 present time investigators are quite generally agreed that an 

 animal born of a tuberculous mother does not carry the germs 

 of the disease in its system, but that, being born of a parent 

 with a weakened constitution, it has a predisposition to dis- 

 ease, and, when called on in after life to perform unusual 

 over-taxing labor, or when exposed to the unfavorable sur- 

 rounding conditions we have named, this, or, in fact, any 

 other disease, is liable to occur. Here, too, by intelligent 

 care and foresight in relation to the required labor and con- 

 ditions, the feared result may be averted. 



Rabies. 

 The rules and regulations for the control and diminution 

 of this disease, of which you were informed in our last report, 

 and which were afterwards sent to all the towns and cities of 

 the State, have been continued, and will not be rescinded at 

 present, or until there is a change for the better in the preva- 

 lence of the contagion. If, however, they are productive of 

 good, there is but little evidence of it. Several cases of the 

 disease in animals and men, the result of the bite of rabid 

 dogs, have been called to our notice, but only after the harm 

 had been done, the offending animal killed, and the danger 

 practically past. There are not a few of these cases in the 

 State in the aggregate, — as many, probably, as of tuber- 

 culosis which can be positively traced to the consumption of 

 infected meat and milk ; but in the country at large they arc 

 so rare, their premonitory symptoms so little understood, 

 and they run their course so quickly, that boards of health 



