TUBERCULOSIS 143 



TUBERCULOSIS 



AVe hesitate to undertake the discussion of this dis- 

 ease in a treatise on special therapy. AYe feel that in 

 the space available justice can hardly be done to a 

 disease which presents such a variety of clinical phe- 

 nomena as this one. Yet, any treatise on the most 

 common diseases of dairy cattle would be most glar- 

 ingly incomplete did it not include a discussion 

 thereon, for tuberculosis is most assuredly one of the 

 most common diseases of dairy cattle. 



The longer one is engaged in the practice of vet- 

 erinary medicine the more does he become impressed 

 with the great variability and the constant modifica- 

 tion or aggravation of the clinical signs of this dis- 

 ease. Also, the more extensive one's experience with 

 this variability of clinical evidences of the disease the 

 more impressed he becomes with the idea that tuber- 

 culosis is practically universal. One finds it where it 

 is least expected, and one finds more than he expected 

 to find wherever he finds it. 



The diagnosis of tuberculosis is limited only, in our 

 opinion, by the diagnostic acuteness of the diagnos- 

 tician. We vividly recall an experience w^e went 

 through in the great Southwest, where tuberculosis is 

 not common in native cattle. A dairy near the city 

 of El Paso, Texas, milking around five hundred cows, 

 was forced by city ordinance to submit the herd to the 

 tuberculin test. The dairy was a model from a sani- 

 tary standpoint, was hygienically conducted in all de- 

 partments and the cows themselves were almost daily 

 under the eye of a veterinarian. The cows, mostly 

 Holsteins, were almost all bought in Northern states. 

 While we knew that the herd had a number of tuber- 



