No. 4.] CATTLE COMMISSIONERS. 513 



As has been said in previous reports, tuberculosis is not 

 an infrequent disease amono; swine raised in Massachusetts, 

 and is most frequently met with in pigs kept in cellars under 

 cow barns on farms where tuberculosis exists in the cattle. 

 It is not a source of great loss, as pigs are usually so young 

 when killed that the lesions are not extensive, and it is only 

 occasionally that one is condemned as unfit for food at the 

 time of slaughter. 



Other Diseases. 



In addition to the diseases mentioned above, the commis- 

 sion has been called upon twice to investigate what were 

 thought to be outbreaks of contagious disease, but which 

 proved not to be. 



June 12 a telephone message was received from the select- 

 men of Southborough that some of the cows in a herd were 

 sick, and that poisoning was suspected ; that an officer of the 

 district police was investigating the matter, but they thought 

 the Cattle Commission should investigate it also. The chair- 

 man and secretary immediately went to Southborough, and 

 saw a herd of some 60 cows. Several had been sick and 1 

 had died, but the sick were improving. Samples of milk 

 from a sick cow, taken by the commission and examined by 

 Dr. Chas. Harrington of Boston, were found not to contain 

 poison. Vomitus from a sick cow, taken by the State police 

 and analyzed in Worcester, contained no common poison. 

 As the summer was very dry and the pastures bare, it is 

 probable the cows taken sick had eaten some weed or shrub 

 that poisoned them, although what the plant was has not 

 been determined. 



Another case of poisoning reported to Mr. Herrick and 

 investigated for him by C. A. Fenner occurred in Sutton, in 

 July. Sunday, July 16, between four and five o'clock in the 

 afternoon, 4 horses were turned out to grass on the grounds 

 about the house, and all remained out until about nine o'clock, 

 when 3 of the horses were put in the stable, 1 remaining out 

 all night. Monday, July 17, about ten o'clock in the morn- 

 ing, 1 of the horses was noticed to be badly bloated, and 

 discharging a white substance from the mouth and nostrils. 

 The other 3 horses were found to be in the same condition, 



