bovine tuberculosis. 
401 
By means of the wide-awake Virginia veterinarians, I believe 
that m less than five years, tick-disease or murrain in this State 
will be an unknown quantity. You owe it to yourselves and to 
your ellows m other States to show what may be done by a few 
willing, courageous men. The task is a great one, but if you do 
what you find to do, it will be accomplished. 
. 1 look most ea g er ly for the cleansing of even a certain por¬ 
tion of the infected territory under the direct intention of man 
for it opens the way to pushing the ticks back to the Spanish 
isles and Mexico, and liberating cattle from disease and pests 
and the farmer from untold money losses. Let your war-cry be 
“ Death to the ticks.” 
BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS, A QUESTION OF STATE 
MEDICINE.* 
By W. H. Harbaugh, V. S., Richmond, Va. 
The discovery of the tubercle bacillus by Robert Koch in 
1882 at once and effectually put an end to all disputes and con¬ 
troversies as to the cause of tuberculosis in its various manifesta¬ 
tions, which had agitated the minds of medical investigators up 
to that time. 1 
Koch s discovery also established the fact that tuberculosis 
m man and the lower animals is due to one and the same cause, 
no matter how much the symptoms and lesions may vary in the 
different species, and it may be pointed out that this disease at¬ 
tacks more different species than any other disease, although some 
species exhibit a much greater susceptibility to it than others, 
and while some species show a marked degree of insusceptibility 
by the ordinary means of transmission of contagion, they 
succumb to inoculation. But man and the bovine species above 
all others seem to be the special marks for the attacks of this 
scourges and hence, the relationship of the disease in these two 
species has received a greater amount of study and investiga¬ 
tion owing to the fact that a very large proportion of the food 
* Reprinted from the Bulletin of the Virginia Board of Health for July. 
