128 MAiyrE state colllge 



tuberculin test. One cow that seemed to be tuberculous from a pbjsf' 

 cal examinalion proved to be suffering from a slight disorder of an 

 entirely different nature. Since last October cattle taken to the 

 Brighton and Watertown markets have been tested with tuberculin 

 by the veterinarian of the Boston Board of Health and destroyed 

 at the owner's loss when found diseased, so it is safe to assume that 

 only apparently sound cattle have been sent there since that time.. 

 During the first six months over one hundred animals were con- 

 demned and the autopsies showed that 79 per cent were tuberculous, 

 and of sixty-three beef catt'e passed as sound and slaughtered, 

 four were found to be tuberculous. Here we have the tuberculin 

 test applied under the most unfavorable conditions upon cattle just 

 arrived from a long journey and surrounded by all tne disturbing 

 influences of an open market, yet the result mu=t be considered 

 very favorable to the tuberculin test as compared with any physi- 

 cal examination. 



The biologist of the Xew .Jersey Experiment Station. Professor 

 Julius Nelson, reports that of the forty-three animals of the college 

 herd examined by him. reactions were obtained in twentv-eight 

 cases and at the autopsies twenty-five were evidently diseased. The 

 other three, one cow and two heifers were apparently sound but he 

 says the temperature of these three varied so little from the normal 

 that he was in doubt whether they reacted or not. and he killed them 

 on mere suspicion. This same herd was subjected to a careful physi- 

 cal examination before the tuberculin was used and fifteen animals 

 selected as diseased, three of which proved to be sound. Dr. Austin 

 Peters in an address de'ivered in Boston recently assumes as a 

 result of his observation that only a quarter or a third of the cases 

 of tuberculosis revealed by means of tuberculm would be discov- 

 ered by a physical examination. Dr. Laws of Cornell, a very con- 

 servative man, says in a bulletin published a little more than a 

 year ago. '-When the State aims at a thorough extinction of the 

 disease ftuberculosis) in our herds this test Ctuberculin test; can- 

 not be omitted as it is absolutely essential to success," and what 

 he says in regard to the extinction of tuberculosis from a state has 

 equal force when applied to a herd. 



In regard to the effect of tuberculin upon healthy cattle, in a 

 recent bulletin Dr. Laws produces testimony based upon his own 

 experiments and those of the L'nited States Bureau of Animal 

 Industry that shows, as far as these experiments go that the injec- 

 tion of a test dose of tuberculin into a healthy cow. even if repeat- 



