388 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



sound udders, and found the milk of nine of them infected. A 

 careful microscopic examination revealed tuberculosis in the 

 udders of three of the cows, leaving six that gave infected milk, 

 in which, even after death, and with all scientific appliances, no 

 tuberculosis could be found in the udder. Another case is 

 recorded where the owner of a very valual^le herd of cattle, 

 finding that a large proportion of them were tuberculous, with- 

 drew his milk from the market and used it for fattening his 

 pigs, of which he had a large number. The result was that the 

 pigs, almost without exception, Ijecame so infected with the 

 disease that it was necessary to slaughter the whole herd. 



An example of this came under the direct observation of the 

 Board, where thirteen animals were quarantined on a farm 

 removed from all other animals, and which had responded to 

 the tulierculin test. These animals were used for experimental 

 purposes during the past eight months, among which experi- 

 ments one was the feeding of milk to four calves, which had 

 been demonstrated to be free from disease, by the test. The 

 calves have since been slaughtered and found to be tuberculous. 



The communication of the disease from cattle to man can 

 only be shown by accidental cases, many of which have been 

 recorded. Doctor Treom describes the poor, emaciated, dis- 

 eased animals furnished to the tribes of north-western Indians, 

 — how they eat the liver, tallow and entrails, raw and fresh, 

 and how the carcass is dried, pounded, packed in skin to be 

 eaten later uncooked, even though these animals died of dis- 

 ease. The Indian mortality of consumption is fifty per cent, 

 of all deaths, at several points; while at Crow Creek, Dak., 

 fifty out of the total Indian population of twelve hundred die 

 yearly of consumption and scrofula. (1 Amer. Practitioner, 

 quoted by Law, ibid., page 131; 2 Holder, Medical Record, 

 Aug. 13, 1892, quoted by Law, 2*6 ^f?., page 131. Scrofula is 

 usually of tuberculous origin. L.) Dr. Washington Mat- 

 thews spent twenty-one years among the Indians. He states 

 that their food is the primary cause of tuberculosis among 

 them, and that when the supply of fresh beef is liberal the 

 death rate from consumption is highest. (Census of 1880.) 



The question of infection of tuberculosis being conveyed by 

 the milk is often of even greater importance than is infection by 

 flesh. Doctor Brush, who is a physician and cattle breeder, 



