372 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



as those of the farmers and the people at large, it was, while 

 pursuing this method, needlessly frittering away the State's 

 money ; because, while the State could, in the opinion of the 

 Board, properly and justly expend large sums of money to 

 eradicate this disease, any method based upon physical exami- 

 nation, as then pursued by the Board, would only result in the 

 expenditure of a considerable sum without obtaining a result 

 which was commensurate ; for, while the commissioners might 

 successfully pick out here and there throughout the various 

 herds in the State animals where the disease was well marked, 

 there were liable to be left in the same herds a large number of 

 incipient cases, not capable of detection by ordinary means, and 

 that therefore no efficient check to its spread would be made. 



The Board, as has already been stated, determined, after a 

 most careful and exhaustive consideration of the subject, and 

 relying upon actual tests, to do awa}^ entirely with the physical 

 examination, as a method of determining in the last instance the 

 existence of the disease, and to suljstitute in its place the tuber- 

 culin test in all cases of neat cattle suspected of being affected 

 with tuberculosis. Under this branch of the work no animal 

 is so tested except where it has already been reported to the 

 Board by a local inspector as tuberculous, and quarantined as 

 gach, — the inspector, of course, relying upon phj^sical exami- 

 nation. 



The other branch of the work of inspectors, in connection 

 with this Board, relates to the examination, at the time of 

 slaughter, of the carcasses of all neat cattle, including calves, 

 that are butchered throughout the State. In the report which 

 we submitted to your honorable body in January, 1894, we 

 called your attention to the fact that tuberculous cattle were 

 being slaughtered in different parts of the State by unprincipled 

 butchers, and that the meat from them was being sold to unsus- 

 pecting persons for food. We then also stated that in our 

 opinion this was one serious obstacle to the eradication of the 

 disease, for controlling which no adequate provision of law then 

 existed. We consequently recommended that some legislation 

 be framed to control the matter of the slaughter of cattle, and 

 providing for uniform inspection of the carcasses. In conse- 

 quence of this, sections 17-23 inclusive of the Act of 1894 were 

 passed, which provided briefly as follows : that all persons en- 



