470 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



the disease, and post-mortem examination fails to find such 

 disease, it is unsafe to charge the error to tuberculin. 



In this connection the Board would call attention to the 

 following extract from a paper read by Dr. W. B. Niles of 

 the veterinary department of Iowa State College before the 

 Des Moines meeting of the United States Veterinary Medical 

 Association. He says : — 



When a characteristic reaction occurs, that is, where there is a 

 marked rise above the normal, continuing for several hours, I believe 

 in every case the animal has tuberculosis, whether the post-mortem 

 examination shows the lesions or not; that is, I would place a 

 Greater reliance upon the tuberculin test than I would on the post- 

 mortem examination. We all know that the lesions may be easily 

 overlooked, or microscopic, and thus escape detection. 



Upon June 5, 1895, a law was passed by your honorable 

 body, being chapter 496 of the Acts of the year 1895, section 

 14 of which law is as follows : — 



Until June first, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, the use of tuber- 

 culin as a diagnostic agent for the detection of the disease known as 

 tuberculosis in domestic animals shall be restricted to cattle brought 

 into the Commonwealth from any point without its limits and to all 

 cattle held in quarantine at Brighton, Watertown and Somerville ; 

 provided, however, that tuberculin may be used as such diagnostic 

 a^ent on any animal or animals in any other portion of the State 

 upon the consent in writing of the owner or person in possession 

 thereof, and upon any animals condemned as tuberculous upon 

 physical examination by a competent veterinarian. 



After the abandonment of examinations at Brighton, Water- 

 town and Somerville, on April 30, the commission watched, 

 as far as it could, the effect upon the market of the withdrawal 

 of quarantine regulations and the consequent throwing open 

 of the market to the free and unrestricted sale of cattle of all 

 kinds. From April 30 to the first day of July, at which time 

 the new regulations came into force, the general character of 

 the animals offered for sale at those markets was distinctly 

 inferior to those which bad been offered for sale there under 

 quarantine regulations heretofore maintained by the Board. 



