THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 173 



not that we expect we have tuberculosis ; it is simply a measure 

 of live stock insurance. During the past eighteen years we have 

 not had one single animal that has shown the disturbance; there 

 are no ill effects of any sort, either temporary or permanently 

 with reference to any animal in that herd. 



That illustrates only one of many instances which indicates 

 that the application of the tuberculin will not produce tubercu- 

 losis. It will not cause disease of any kind. It will not affect 

 their well being even to the extent of disturbing the flow of 

 milk. 



Many persons would lead you to believe that this is a scien- 

 tific fad ; that this is a question brought about by the scientists 

 to give them a job. 



If you go down tomorrow to the Kerber Packing House 

 and see the actual condition before and after these animals are 

 salughtered, I will leave it to you to answer that question, if it 

 is a fad or not. 



Tuberculosis does not arise from any condition of environ- 

 ment ; no matter how unsanitary and dirty stables may be, how 

 they may lack proper ventilation, how much you over- feed or 

 under-feed, you cannot produce tuberculosis by these surround- 

 ings ; but after the tubercular bacilli germ has gotten into your 

 herd these' conditions facilitate and hasten the spread of the 

 disease but it cannot produce it, any more than you can grow 

 corn and barley without planting the seed in the soil; that is the 

 characteristic. 



You plant that seed in that soil and it does not grow until 

 conditions are favorable; when conditions are favorable you 

 get the natural growth. You plant tubercular bacilli, it is nour- 

 ished and you have all the proper conditions for nourishment. 

 It grows slowly as most of the contagious diseases do, but it 

 will spread. It may take years to produce the death of that 

 animal and that fact makes us feel the danger of that disease 

 less than other classes of disease. This disease is the same kind 

 that affects other kinds of domestic animals and I think right 

 here is a good place to say a few words as to the relation this 



