MILK-BOBNE DISEASES 137 



about 17 per cent,'' or little more than the New 

 Jersey figures* That percentage has been very 

 materially lowered, however, as a result of the strenu- 

 ous efforts made by the Danish government to stamp 

 out the disease. In Leipzig, Germany, out of 22,918 

 cattle over one year old slaughtered in 1895, the 

 enormous number of 7,619, or more than 33 per cent, 

 were found to be tuberculous.'* 



These figures are by no means exhaustive, but 

 they sufficiently indicate the prevalence of bovine 

 tuberculosis to be so great as to warrant the serious 

 attention which we have given to the subject. The 

 prevalence of the disease among dairy cattle is no 

 doubt due mainly to the conditions imder which 

 the animals are housed during a great part of the 

 year. Tuberculosis is essentially a house disease, 

 and the housing of cattle has been of the most unsani- 

 tary kind, extremely favorable to the propagation 

 of the disease. Man, then, has brought tuberculosis 

 to the cow by his careless and ignorant management; 

 and if the cow, in turn, spreads the disease among 

 human beings, it is nothing more nor less than a 



* During the year 1906-1907 the New York State Agricul- 

 tural Department tested 2753 cattle with the tuberculin test, 

 with the result that 23.81 per cent responded to the test and 

 were killed. According to Dr. Verenus A. Moore, of the New 

 York State Veterinary College at Cornell University, no less 

 than 72 per cent of all the herds in the State are infected and 

 30 per cent of the milch cows. See New York Times, 

 Dec. 19, 1907. 



