325 
problem developed into, you, of all the dairymen here, are most 
capable of appreciating, as the personal loss you must have sus- 
tained in supporting the plan of eradication, which suggested it- 
self as the speediest expedient, must have amounted to sums which 
even a very wealthy man could ill afford to sacrifice. Neverthe- 
less, you preferred to adhere to the principle that the sooner the 
source of infection was eliminated the sooner a clean herd could 
be established, and the possibility of being instrumental, even 
though distantly so, in disseminating the contagion of a fatal 
human disease, could be done away with. 
I doubt whether you yourself could possibly have realized, at 
the time, the immense importance of your adherence to this prin- 
ciple, as I have to admit that, personally, I considered it cruelly 
wasteful, and doubted whether the moral effect of it would be 
commensurate with the immense sacrifice. The ultimate results, 
however, have shown that your judgment was right, as there can 
be no doubt of its compelling effect upon every dairy owner who 
was at all able to emulate it. That the example set by you should, 
at the same time, make it practically prohibitive for anybody to 
retain, on milk producing premises, diseased cattle, can only be 
regarded as a providential blessing, and can certainly carry no 
opprobrium with it ; and the class of milk producers, if the remain- 
ing few who still persist in hanging on to diseased animals can 
be considered a class, is so small that they must of necessity 
realize their isolated position,^ and vv^ill sooner or later find it so 
burdensome to explain their position to loyal customers, that they 
will find it easier to ''come into line" and send their reactors to the 
butcher. The total result of this anti-tuberculosis milk campaign 
is, however, so gratifying that 1 feel that I must place the credit 
,for it where it belongs, and as much as I should have wished to 
claim the same for the Division of Animal Industry, I cannot help 
but realize, that had it not been for you and your ability to enter 
into this fight in the way you did, we should have been in the 
same position as practically every other municipality which has 
attempted this proposition, that is, we should have either aban- 
doned the fight entirely or we should have fallen back on the 
"Bang" method, which requires from three to ten years for its 
accomplishment. 
The aim of this communication, however, was to apply to you, 
as chairman of the Committee on Animal Industry, for per- 
mission to attend the annual convention of the American Veteri- 
nary Medical Association, which is to be held at Toronto, Canada, 
August 22-25, and. I trust it is unnecessary to say, that unless I 
had already received the assurance of your personal approval of 
my attending this meeting, I should have postponed the above 
peroration to a more appropriate time. The main object of this 
convention is, however, the fight against bovine tuberculosis, and 
a report by a special international committee, composed of the 
most prominent veterinarians and sanitarians of the American 
