402 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



vinced the Commissioners, intelligent veterinarians and cattle men 

 generally, that this is not a disease to be handled as contagions 

 pleuro-pneumonia must be. It is usually slow and uncertain in 

 its action, exceedingly difficult or impossible to detect in its early 

 stages, and greatly modified in its course by conditions, sanitary 

 or otherwise, under which the infected animals are kept. 



The aim and purpose of the original statute was to suppress 

 contagious pleuro-pneumonia, in the interest, primarily, of cattle 

 owners, rather than for the protection of the public from the dan- 

 ger of consuming poisonous animal products. 



The control of tuberculous cattle and their food products, when 

 offered for public use, is as fully within the jurisdiction of boards 

 of health and food inspectors as of the Cattle Commissioners, so 

 long as action is restricted to the protection of human health ; 

 though any attempt to effectually eradicate the disease from the 

 State might require the action of both. 



Every wise person, before beginning any great work, will make 

 as accurate an estimate as possible of the magnitude of the under- 

 taking. The extent of the work required to clear an infected 

 territory of tuberculosis will appear at least to those who have 

 given the subject the least thought or consideration. In a State 

 like Massachusetts, where a large proportion of the stock kept is 

 shipped in from beyond her borders, there would be no end to the 

 work till the outside territory was made free from the disease. 



But there is another view of the subject, of which few even of 

 the most vigilant veterinarians or medical men seem to have 

 obtained so much as a glance ; viz., the danger to healthy animals 

 from association with consumptive members of the human family. 

 Dr. Daniel D. Lee, instructor of anatomy in the veterinary 

 department of Harvard University, contributed to the March 

 number of the "Journal of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary 

 Archives " a communication which touches this side of the question 

 in a way that may well cause one to ask if the present need is not 

 for a better understanding of the nature of the disease by all who 

 produce or consume animal products, rather than for the pole-axe 

 or shooting iron of the Cattle Commissioner. Under the title, 

 " The Present Attitude of Veterinarians on the Subject of Tuber- 

 culosis," the doctor says : — 



• All the veterinarians who have had the advantage of a modern educa- 

 tion in their profession are thoroughly convinced that tuberculosis is a 

 contagious disease. They are aware that the disease can be produced 

 by the inoculation of milk, of muscle juice or tuberculous products from 

 animals suffering from the disease, and also that it is transmitted from 



