8L8 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 
Durham 18*7 per cent., in Edinburgh 5*75 per cent. Of the 20 per 
cent, found in Midlothian, 16 per cent, were cows and heifers in calf,. 
1 per cent, bulls, 2 per cent, were store stock over one year old, and 
1 per cent, store stock under one year. Professor McFadvean esti- 
mates that at least 5 per cent, of all adult cattle in Great Britain are 
tuberculous, and that the proportion in milch cows kept in cities is 
probably 20 per cent., and these estimates are endorsed by other 
eminent veterinarians. 
In other European countries the statistics furnished by abattoir 
authorities vary remarkably in different provinces — as low as 1*6 
tuberculous cattle per thousand in Bavaria in 1887, and as high as 60 
and 70 per cent, at irildesheim. The variation in these statistics is 
evidently due to the amount of care with which the animals are 
inspected, and also to the fact that many veterinary inspectors do not 
record cases in which the disease is very limited. It is manifest that 
the proportion of cases found in abattoirs increases with the care 
taken for their discovery. Thus at Dresden in 1888 there were only 
2 per cent., and in 1889 3*2 per cent., of tuberculous cattle reported, 
but since then the number of veterinary inspectors has been consider- 
ably augmented, and the proportion had risen in 1892 to IP 1 per 
cent. Again at Bromberg, since inspection has been carried out by 
veterinary surgeons, the percentage of tuberculous animals slaughtered 
reaches as high as 26*2 per cent. In Denmark and Saxony inspections 
are very thorough, and the proportion of tuberculous cuttle is 16 per 
cent, in the former country and 22 per cent, in the latter. In the 
Berlin abattoirs for 1891 there were 12 per cent, of bovines found to 
be affected, and throughout Prussia 6*3 per cent. In France the 
proportion of carcasses condemned as unfit for human consumption is 
small — less than 1 per cent. ; but it is to be noted that it is only those 
animals in which the tuberculosis is generalised and all the organs 
invaded that are seized. 
Begarding the proportion of cases of generalised tuberculosis to 
those in which the disease is localised, there is a valuable record 
published by the Revue Scientific of statistics obtained at the Leipsic 
abattoirs. Of 13,688 cases of the disease in cattle found there, 13*8 
jier cent, were generalised. 
Coming now to the prevalence of the disease in the cattle of the 
Australian colonies, I am at a great disadvantage, for there are at 
present no means of ascertaining authentically the extent to which it 
exists. I have, however, no hesitation in saying that it is as common 
in these colonies as in any part of the world, and I wish to take this 
opportunity 1o publielv correct a false impression that obtains in some 
quarters to the effect that cattle kept in a semi-wild state in the 
Australian hush are immune to the disease. Kuowing that tubercu- 
losis is to a certain extent a disease of domestication, spreading 
readily by close cohabitation, a superficial consideration would seem 
to support such an impression. But careful inquiry and experience 
of the conditions under which the cattle are bred and reared show 
that there are factors obtaining in Australia which predispose to the 
prevalence of the disease just as much as do the close cohabitation 
and pampered treatment of cattle in byres in the old world. 1 irst of 
all there is an equal vulnerability to the disease inherited, here as in 
England, from pure-bred and diseased sires aud dams, either imported 
