THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 99 



remain a local disease and finally die out entirely. On the other 

 hand, if those fundamental laws have been disobeyed to any great 

 extent, then the disease sooner or later becomes generalized, 

 whereupon it begins to spread. There is food for thought in 

 this. 



The greatest amount of tuberculosis is always in the congest- 

 ed districts, such as large cities, and radiating out from them, it 

 diminishes more and more until it fades almost entirely away. 

 We find this to be true, not only in man but the lower animals 

 as well and these conditions are found in every part of the world, 

 though in some places worse than others. 



We have the disease in Illinois, and we have more of it than 

 we desire. We should like to get rid of it at once, but that we 

 cannot do, for ft would be impossible ot accomplishment. Then 

 what must be the plan to solve this problem? Crusades always 

 meet with disaster. Illinois tried one ten years ago. New York, 

 Massachusetts and other states also have tried them, but they 

 were all failures and on account of these results, the disease has 

 been spread not only in the states where the crusades were con- 

 ducted, but in the adjoining states as well. Wisconsin is at- 

 tempting to stamp out the disease, but is, in other words, only 

 driving a large percentage of it over the line into Illinois. The 

 Badger State is doing a tremendous amount of testing, and if 

 it should continue to test as many cattle every year as it has in 

 the last year, it would take from seventy to eighty years to test 

 once all of the cattle within its borders. If at the end of eighty 

 years, and if they should have succeeded in testing all of their 

 cattle once, what would have been accomplished? First, the 

 disease would be scattered over a large area, millions of dollars 

 worth of diseased cattle would have crossed over into Illinois, 

 and they would have almost as much disease as they had before 

 they began ; differing only in one particular, and that instead of 

 the disease being centered in certain areas, it would be scattered 

 to every point in the state. 



The State of Minnesota has been making desperate efforts 

 to eradicate the disease in recent years. The state officials in 



