36 CONFERENCE ON MILK PROBLEMS 



reacting animals, it seems to me that we will have to meet the situa- 

 tion as best we can. 



A year ago I had the privilege and the pleasure of spending 

 some time in Denmark and in Germany, in studying the methods 

 which they had put into practice, in order to safeguard the con- 

 sumers of milk from tubercle bacilli coming from those herds which 

 have not yet been under the tuberculin test. I found that their 

 method was to make frequent and rigid physical examinations. We 

 find, for example, in Copenhagen, the statement that they have the 

 lowest mortality in children, and the Copenhagen Milk Supply 

 Company has a force of skilled veterinarians who are inspecting 

 the herds from which they receive their milk, at very frequent inter- 

 vals. 



While it is recognized by Prof. Bang and Dr. Osterbach and Dr. 

 Bulls and others who have learned in this line that the physical 

 examination will detect a very small percentage of the animals that 

 are infected with tuberculosis, yet it is possible, by that means of 

 detecting it and by acting upon this detection to eliminate the 

 very great majority of those cows that are eliminating tubercle 

 bacilli in their milk or with their feces. 



Consequently, it does seem to me that, in view of the fact, that 

 children are contracting tuberculosis of the bovine type, and that 

 tubercle bacilli are present in considerable numbers in market milk, 

 our inspection, however good it may have been as to the cleanli- 

 ness of the stable, circulation, light and so on, has been somewhat 

 derelict in the elimination of the spreaders of tubercle bacilli. 



Prof. Bang said to me last summer, " You people in America 

 never will succeed because you want too much at once. You want 

 too radical measures; you are not willing to give a physical exam- 

 ination and eliminate the spreaders, and gradually work back with 

 the tuberculin until you eliminate the disease itself, thereby pro- 

 curing constantly increasing safety to the community and constantly 

 increasing benefit to the owners of the farms, that they may have 

 sound herds." 



Now, it does seem to me that the one thing that is lacking in the 

 milk production of this country is the physical examination in our 

 dairy districts, for the purpose of excluding from the milk supply 

 those animals that are obviously spreading the tubercle bacilli. 

 Now, a good many careful investigations have been made in this 

 line. We have, at our institution, undertaken some investigations 

 that are most interesting in this respect. Similar ones have been 

 and are being carried out in Germany and elsewhere. These are 

 for the purpose of finding, as nearly as we can, to what extent 

 tubercle bacilli are being eliminated by animals that are infected, 



