No. 4.] CATTLE COMMISSIONERS' REPORT. 4G5 



coming to these markets should be subjected to the tuberculin test 

 before being offered for sale. Whether or not, in view of the cir- 

 cumstances under which these animals have to be examined, such a 

 result can be obtained by the tuberculin test, still remains to be proved. 



This experiment was continued under substantially the same 

 conditions until April 30, 1895. 



The commission, after a most extended work with tubercu- 

 lin, is satisfied that the unsatisfactory results which were ob- 

 tained at these markets were not due to the inability of the 

 agent tuberculin to disclose the presence of the disease when 

 applied under proper conditions, but were due to other causes, 

 of which the commission has made a most careful study. 

 Upon pages 22 and 26 of our report for last year will be found 

 the views of the commission as to the difficulty of making suc- 

 cessful tests at these markets, and the reasons for it. 



In continuing this work, the commission made every reason- 

 able endeavor to reduce to a minimum, or eliminate, the un- 

 favorable conditions under which the work was obliged to be 

 conducted, while at the same time endeavoring not to interfere 

 any more than was absolutely necessary with the interests of 

 those selling and buying cattle at these markets. 



Long familiarity with the work of testing cattle with tuber- 

 culin has convinced the commission that it is an extremely 

 delicate test, and that satisfactory results cannot be uniformly 

 obtained unless the animals to be tested are in substantially a 

 normal condition ; which means that they must be free from 

 local causes of excitement, must be in surroundings which are 

 reasonably familiar to them, must have been regularly fed and 

 watered prior to the time of the test, and that immediately 

 prior thereto they should not have been subjected to any un- 

 usual circumstances of any kind, such, for instance, as those 

 inseparably attending a railroad journey. 



Inasmuch as the work which was conducted at Brighton was 

 entirely novel, and the commission was not able at that time 

 to gather from the experience of others to what extent the ab- 

 normal conditions and strange surroundings would interfere 

 with the proper application of the tuberculin test, it w r as but 

 natural that these conditions were not fully appreciated in the 

 early stages of the work. 



