INTEBCOMMUNICABILITT OF TUBERCULOSIS. 
821 
New South Wales is the bright exception, however. Recently in that 
colony, mainly I believe through the instrumentality of my friend, 
Mr. Edward Stanley, E.R.C.V.S., ably seconded in his efforts by the 
Public Health Department, there has been instituted a system of 
rigorous supervision of all the dairy cattle and of all the metropolitan 
meat supply by skilled veterinary surgeons — a system which even it t 
its infancy has demonstrated its usefulness, and which in the fulness 
of time bids fair to considerably enhance the health and national 
wealth of the colony. In the other colonies, so far as I can gather* 
and certainly in Victoria, little is being done in this direction. 
Dr. Gresswell, chairman of the Victorian Board of Public Health* 
ever since his arrival in the colony has been foremost in advocacy of 
reform in connection with the supervision of animal food supplies and 
animal diseases transmissible to man, and the growing feeling of 
danger to be apprehended from these sources which is now appreciable 
in Victoria is mainly due to his persistence* U p to the present, however, 
his efforts in this direction have met withlittleeiicouragementorsupport. 
The Australian Health Society has been instrumental in advising 
the public of the danger of infection by cow’s milk, and has suggested 
that all milk should be boiled before being used. 1 question the 
expediency of depending on the public adopting this suggestion. If 
we do so depend, I am afraid we are hugging a delusion. In fact, I 
object to recommending the boiling of milk as a panacea for the risk 
of infection. It is beginning at the wrong end, and is like supplying 
sewage water to a community with a recommendation that it be boiled 
before use. The fact is, milk is and will be consumed in immense 
quantities unboiled. It is impossible to enjoin the boiling of milk 
with everybody. However it may be pressed it will not be carried 
out. Eurther, may it not be fairly claimed that the State ought to 
take steps to protect the public from the imposition upon it of 
unwholesome or infected milk ; that, in fact, the public have a right to 
demand that when they purchase what purports to be wholesome milk, 
that article of food should not have mixed with it the virulent germs 
of a deadly disease. The State recognises its incumbency to protect 
the public against the mere adulteration of milk and other articles of 
food, but makes no adequate arrangement for the performance of a 
much more manifest and urgent duty — namely, to see that these are 
not actually disease-producing. 
It will be expected that 1 should offer some suggestions for the 
better control of dairies and the suppression of this disease in dairy 
cattle, with the object of minimising danger to mankind, for it will 
have been gleaned that I apprehend vastly more danger from 
uncontrolled dairies and milk supply than from uncontrolled abattoirs 
and meat supply. It is obvious that if affected animals were 
systematically destroyed there would be so many less centres of 
infection. The prevalence of the disease in animals would be 
decreased, and a corresponding decrease of danger to man would 
follow. Whether the disease in bovines can be completely eradicated 
or not is a problem which will shortly he submitted to proof. The 
Danish Government have set aside £25,000 to be used by Dr. Bang, 
V.8., for the purpose of ascertaining the possibility of stamping out 
the disease in cattle in that country. The aid of tuberculin and 
3 E 
