No. 4.] CATTLE COMMISSIONERS' REPORT. 209 



but from the herds of neighboring States as well ; and one 

 of two things happens, — either the amount of money ex- 

 pended is so large that the law becomes too much of a bur- 

 den to the tax payers, and has to be abandoned, or else the 

 State maintaining the law has to institute a quarantine 

 asfainst the animals coming in from another State or States, 

 according to the drift of the incoming cattle trade. 



Another serious objection to any S3\steni that attempts to 

 eradicate tuberculosis by relying upon owners of animals to 

 report its existence, either with or without indemnity, is 

 to be found in the nature itself of the disease. The con- 

 tagious principle is not as freely communicated from one ani- 

 mal to another, nor is it by any means as commonly produc- 

 tive of pronounced symptoms of disorder among those which 

 have become its victims, as is that of contagious pleuro- 

 pneumonia, or, in fact, any other of the known contagious 

 diseases of cattle. On the contrary, as has already been 

 shown, it exists over and over again in animals that are to 

 all ordinary appearances in a most perfect state of health ; 

 and, further than this, even with such weakly marked indi- 

 cations as to oftentimes baffle the discovery of the most ex- 

 pert practitioner, until by repeated careful examinations it is 

 finally detected. Any law, therefore, that does not recog- 

 nize this feature of tuberculosis, and meet it, so far as pos- 

 sible, by providing for repeated careful examinations of all 

 the animals by those who have been more or less drilled in 

 its detection, and that animals in which the disease has been 

 discovered shall alone be killed, will most assuredly fail of 

 accomi)lishing its object. There is no such thing as staiiip- 

 ing out tuberculosis, it must be weeded out ; and this pro- 

 cess, we all know, needs care, time and patience. 



The Massachusetts law avoids these evils, but in so doing 

 sets up another, to its full extent, which has but a, so to say, 

 half existence in the law that pays a half indemnity. It is 

 true that it oftentimes is very hard for an owner to be 

 obliged to lose an animal that he has always regarded as 

 being healthy, because she is found to have tuberculosis ; it 

 is hard for men to lose property from any cause ; but when 

 it is considered that the use of the milk from such a cow may 

 be a constant source of danger to the members of his family 



