240 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



as shown bj microscopic study and artificial cultivation. 

 Other observers find from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of these 

 forms of tuberculosis in children to show^ the bovine type of 

 bacillus. 



Last summer, in order to assist in this study, the Cattle 

 Bureau bought six calves for exjDerimental purposes and 

 furnished their food and care. Dr. Smith and Dr. Lewis 

 inoculated the calves with cultures of tubercle bacilli from 

 the cervical lymph glands of three children suffering from 

 this form of tuberculosis. Cultures from each case were 

 inoculated intravenously into three calves and subcutaneously 

 into three. All the calves develoi^ed acute and fatal tuber- 

 culosis, showing that the disease in the children w^as of bovine 

 origin. The increasing numbers of cases of tuberculosis in 

 swine seem to be of bovine origin. A case of tuberculosis in 

 a horse, seen at Ayer by Dr. IT. P. Rogers last summer, was 

 due to infection from cattle, as Dr. Smith obtained a culture 

 from the lesions in the horse's lung, where the bacillus was 

 clearly of the bovine type. 



The work of the inspectors of animals in quarantining tu- 

 berculous cattle and cows wdtli nodulated udders, which are 

 examined by agents of the Cattle Bureau and appraised and 

 killed if found to be diseased, gives the State a fair system 

 of dairy inspection as far as protecting the public health 

 is concerned, but it is not decreasing the prevalence of the 

 disease among our herds to any great extent, if at all. Tu- 

 berculosis is a disease that the farmer can no more afford 

 to allow to prevail among his cattle and swine than he can 

 afford to allow contagious pleuro-pneumonia or foot-and- 

 mouth disease to run riot among his animals, and it is time 

 the farmers of the State became more interested in its erad- 

 ication than they are at present, from an economic point of 

 view, even if the question of protecting the j^ublic health 

 does not appeal to them. As the Cattle Bureau spends its 

 entire annual appropriation, and more, too, every year, it 

 does not seem possible to do any more than at present without 

 having more money with which to work, yet if more could 

 be done it would be desirable, and in the end might save 

 money for the future. 



