400 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



ment was a nuisance, the board of health had power to 

 abate it by cleaning it up, or removing it to a healthy 

 locality. It was not done, however; the business of the 

 owner was destroyed, restraint was finally removed, the 

 concern broken up, and stock scattered by the act of the 

 owner, and our board have not learned that it proved a new 

 centre of tuberculous infection. The public discussion of 

 these and other kindred cases convinced the Commissioners, 

 that, notwithstanding our repeated publication of the char- 

 acteristics and the facts in relation to the disease, the public 

 were not fully informed respecting it, and boards of health 

 were not aware of the direction and limitation of their 

 powers and duties when taking control of a case. There- 

 fore its secretary, by direction of the board, prepared the 

 following circular, to which was appended our regulation for 

 their guidance, and sent copies of the same to the proper 

 officers of our cities and towns. The information it con- 

 tained had also a wide circulation by aid of the newspaper 

 •press. 



Tuberculosis : its Relations to Agricultural Industry and 

 Public Health. 



Secretary's Office, Dedham, Mass., May 1, 1890. 



Tuberculosis is a word that is not found even in the latest 

 editions of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. The disease among 

 animals known by this name is identical with that so long known 

 as consumption in the human family ; but that it is a contagious 

 disease, which may be communicated from animals to man and 

 from man to animals, has not been generally suspected even by the 

 medical profession till within a comparatively recent period ; and, 

 now that its contagious nature is accepted, much further investi- 

 gation is needed to determine exactly how and to what extent it 

 is communicable under varying circumstances and conditions. 

 Until very recently it was not believed that the milk from a tuber- 

 culous cow could be harmful, unless the disease had extended to 

 the udder ; but the experiments made during the past two years, 

 under the auspices of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting 

 Agriculture, have shown that the germs of the disease are some- 



