192 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Dr. Osgood. We have made some thirty thousand tests. 

 I have yet to know of the first instance in which a healthy 

 animal has been so injured. The opinion of all the govern- 

 ments of the world is that tuberculin has no injurious effect 

 upon animals free from tuberculosis. The opinion seems to 

 be uniform throughout the civilized world. That is the 

 conclusion that is becoming recognized as a fact. We have 

 never had any reason to believe that it could have any inju- 

 rious effect. Suppose an animal is suffering from bowel 

 trouble of some kind, — it becomes necessary to give it an 

 injection of morphine ; our syringe is not absolutely clean ; 

 we allow a bubble of air to enter the syringe, and just so 

 sure as we inject it, it causes an abscess. If it had been 

 tuberculin, it would have been attributed to tuberculin. 

 Again, take any animal with hair on the body, — if we 

 puncture the bowels and drive the trocar and carry with it 

 a single hair, the result is an abscess. Just the same in 

 introducing our syringe with the test of tuberculin. If we 

 happen to grind off a piece of hair or dirt from the skin, 

 the result is an abscess. Undoubtedly abscesses have oc- 

 curred as a result of dirt or foreign bodies of any kind 

 being introduced under the skin, or a bubble of air. Other 

 than that, I have never heard any complaint of tuberculin. 



Mr. Newhall. If a healthy animal were put into a herd 

 where there were germs, how soon might that animal take 

 the disease and show the effects of it ? . 



Dr. Osgood. That will depend entirely on the condition 

 of the animal and the stage of the disease in which the 

 other animals were. 



I will give a few figures of the work under the law of 



& 





1895 since June 5, when the new law went into effect. We 

 have examined, by voluntary request of the owners, 3,325 

 animals. Those were herds where the owners had no par- 

 ticular reason to suspect that the disease was present, but, 

 notwithstanding that fact, an examination of the herds 

 showed 26 per cent of the cattle in them to be diseased with 

 tuberculosis ; 881 were condemned, and found on autopsy 

 to be diseased. Of 1,(339 animals that had been quaran- 

 tined by local inspectors since June 5, 802 were condemned, 

 nearly 50 per cent. The average price paid for cattle, of 



