424 THE MANAGEMENT AND FEEDING OF CATTLE 



ance in the breeding of good stock on the part of many 

 breeders because of the depressing influence of such losses 

 and the extent to which they thwart the laudable ambi- 

 tions to grow high-class stock. To these it is legitimate to 

 add the cost of protective and remedial measures in fight- 

 ing the disease. The direct losses by death are enormous 

 in the aggregate, and these losses to the individual and 

 to the state meanwhile have been greatly augmented 

 since legislation has made compulsory, and rightly so, 

 the testing of milk shipped into cities. The less direct 

 loss, but none the less real, through decreased produc- 

 tion in afflicted animals during decline is very great. In 

 many instances pure-bred herds and good dairy herds 

 have been so decimated that the breeders and owners 

 have gone out of the business, seeing which others have . 

 been deterred from going into it. It has sometimes been 

 said that the cost of protective measures provided by 

 authorized state authorities is greater in the case of 

 tuberculosis than of all other diseases combined, and 

 that the losses incurred from the disease are greater in 

 the aggregate than the losses from all other communi- 

 cable cattle diseases combined. 



The tuberculin test is the only sure means of cor- 

 rectly diagnosing the disease, unless in its more ad- 

 vanced stages. In view of the beneficent character of 

 this discovery it does seem strange that it should have 

 met with so much opposition from the owners of cattle 

 and from some editors who posed as leaders in agricul- 

 tural thought. Happily, however, this foolish hostility isc 

 gradually growing less. Since no treatment for tuber- 

 culosis is completely satisfactory, the relative importance 

 of protective measures with a view to prevention is in- 

 creased. 



The protective influences against tuberculosis in 

 cattle include the following: (i) Breeding them on 

 correct lines; (2) managing them according to sane 

 methods; and (3) using the tuberculin test to make 



