THE MILK SITUATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 67 



suffering and prolonging human life. The campaign of education 

 recommended must, it urges, to be effective, be accompanied with a 

 measure of disciplinary control, accomplished through conservative 

 legislation calculated to insure active cooperation on the part of cattle 

 owners and enforced with tact and determination. 



It may be concluded from the foregoing observations that the 

 tuberculin test is a wonderfully accurate method of detecting tuber- 

 culosis; that the application of tuberculin has no injurious effect upon 

 healthy cattle, and that its employment in diagnosing the disease in 

 animals makes possible the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. 



CONTEMPLATED ADVANTAGES OF THE TUBERCULIN TEST. 



The advantages which should result from the enforcement generally 

 in a given jurisdiction of the tuberculin test are well specified by 

 Surg. Gen. Wyman, of the United States Public Health and Marine- 

 Hospital Service. He says: 



The enforcement of the tuberculin test would reduce the amount of tubercu- 

 losis among dairy cattle and free the milk supply from tubercle bacilli, with the 

 probable result that the incidence of tuberculosis among hogs fed on creamery 

 skimmed milk would be reduced and the incidence of infection with the bovine 

 tubercle bacilli among human beings would be practically eliminated. 



Freeman is authority for the statement that the enforcement of 

 the tuberculin test will effect a marked diminution in infant mor- 

 tality, which opinion is shared by Ravenel, Winslow, Vaughan, and 

 Prescott, who include adults as well in their commentary, while the 

 Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry, the Surgeon General of 

 the Army, and the Surgeon General of the Navy unite in the judg- 

 ment that it may be used in a rational way to eradicate tuberculosis 

 from cattle with good economic results to the live-stock industry. 

 Dr. T. Alexander Geddes, who has pursued studies and observations 

 on this subject in European countries, refers to the great advantage 

 which would inure to the owners of herds from the fact that it 

 takes less foodstuffs to produce results in a healthy animal than in 

 a tuberculous one, which is especially true where glands of the 

 intestinal tract are involved. Dr. Perrow, health officer of Lynch- 

 burg, Va., calls attention to the difficulty of enforcing the test and 

 enjoins that it be introduced gradually, while Dr. Wheeler, health 

 officer of Portland, Oreg., claims that it will, by removing diseased 

 cattle from the market, give us better meat for table use. The en- 

 forcement of the test would furthermore, it is observed by Dr. Babb, 

 dairy and milk inspector of Topeka, Kans., aid in educating the 

 people to greater caution among themselves with respect to human 

 tuberculosis. Borden's Condensed Milk Co. takes the position that 

 in the present state of the dairy business a general enforcement of 

 the tuberculin test and the slaughter of reacting cows would pro- 

 duce a great financial injury to the dairy business and a loss to the 

 people of the country in depriving a great majority of a large por- 

 tion of their milk supply. The time is not ripe, in its opinion, for 

 the inauguration of the test. The representatives of the Milk Pro- 

 ducers' and Dairymen's Associations furnishing milk for local con- 

 sumption claim that the requirement of the tuberculin test will result 

 disadvantageous^ and lead to exorbitant prices for milk. 



