No. 4.] CATTLE COMMISSIONERS' REPORT. 399 



and quantity of the air which the stock is allowed to breathe ; 

 not givino- them sufficient sun-light and exercise ; feeding the 

 animals with too large a quantity of stimulating grain, in order 

 that the milk supply may be increased to its utmost limit ; by 

 too frequent breeding ; and all causes of a like nature which 

 tend to reduce the vigor of the parent stock. The reasons why 

 the neat stock in this State is subjected to these conditions, 

 which we have before referred to, is principally due to the fact 

 that a large proportion of the stock in the State is kept for 

 dairy purposes, where the owner desires to make them yield as 

 large an annual profit both in milk and calves as possible. 



Having this one object in view, and without a due considera- 

 tion of the effect of this upon the health of the stock, the dairymen 

 have been for years advised to treat the animals in the way be- 

 fore described. It is another noteworthy fact that tuberculous 

 cows are exceedingly apt to yield large quantities of milk ; and, 

 as this is the object for which a great proportion of the cows 

 are kept, it follows that the calves of these diseased animals 

 are very apt to be the ones that are reared for future dairy pur- 

 poses. 



It is another fact of comparatively recent discovery, but of 

 undoubted truth, that the use of milk and meat from diseased 

 animals as food is a source of a probable large proportion of 

 the consumption which exists in mankind. 



The difficulties of the situation from the stand-point of the 

 veterinarian have heretofore centred around the fact that many 

 animals having every appearance of perfect health, with bright 

 eyes, smooth coats, good appetites, giving large quantities of 

 milk or putting on fat easily, — in fact, performing all their func- 

 tions apparently perfectly, — were very frequently found in the 

 slaughter houses or, when they died from accident, to be tuber- 

 culous ; and it was a well-known fact that an animal might be 

 tuberculous and still not present the slightest external symp- 

 toms of it to the most skilled observer. Under these circum- 

 stances, it was obvious that, in the light of the experience at 

 that time, unless all the animals in the herd where tuberculosis 

 was known to exist were killed, there could be no certainty 

 that all of the centres of contagion in that herd would be 

 removed. 



These were the conditions at the time when the peculiar 



