338 Twenty-First Biennial Eeport 



At breeding centers where pure bred cattle are kept 

 tuberculous animals are frequently found unless the 

 herd is kept free by tuberculin testing at regular inter- 

 vals, and these animals are sometimes shipped to other 

 points and carry infection into healthy herds. It is es- 

 timated that the number of tuberculous milking cows is 

 very much greater than that shown by figures from the 

 packing houses. In the District of Columbia a few years 

 ago the tuberculin test was administered to 4,200 cows; 

 of this number 503 were found to be tubercular, and 139 

 were considered suspicious. During recent investiga- 

 tions carried on in the hospitals of New York City in- 

 vestigators determined that 5% of the human tubercu- 

 losis was caused by the tubercular bacillus of the bovine 

 type. Practically all of these were in children under 

 twelve years of age, and it is a reasonable conclusion that 

 their infection came from drinking milk from tubercular 

 cows. Nine and three-tenths per cent. (9.3%) of all 

 fatal cases of tuberculosis in the children's hospitals 

 proved to be of bovine origin. As Kentucky occupies an 

 unenviable position on the tuberculosis map of the United 

 States, it is most reasonable to believ^e that conditions 

 quite similar to those existing in New York are present 

 here. It seems to me that the- time is ripe when some 

 effort should be made to control tuberculosis in animals 

 at the same time that the medical profession is attempt- 

 ing to prevent and control the ravages of this disease 

 among our human inhabitants. Cattle breeders and own- 

 ers of cows supplying milk to our towns and- cities have 

 reason to object to the slaughter of their herds when re- 

 acting to the tuberculin test or found to be tuberculous 

 in other ways when no compensation is allowed for their 

 slaughter. Foot-and-mouth disease does not kill people, 

 but tuberculosis does, and it seems that it would be just 

 as necessary to slaughter tuberculous animals as those 

 affected with foot and mouth disease. If while the next 

 General Assembly is in session laws should be enacted 

 by which progress could be made in the prevention of 

 the spread of this disease to the human family, Ken- 

 tucky would be placed among the first states in the Union 

 to properly provide for the health of its inhabitants, and 

 the legislators would receive the praise not only of the 



