EDITORIAL. 
551 
slaughtered, and the more patent evidences of disease oblit¬ 
erated, when the remainder of the carcass is passed as health¬ 
ful food for national and international trade. Yet Dr. Hick¬ 
man admits that the disease is transmissable, that it may 
invade various organs, that he never made a critical examina¬ 
tion of a carcass to see what organs, and that ordinarily he 
w as not furnished with a microscope of sufficient power to 
identify the actinomyces. 
As chief inspector at the chief meat inspection point in 
the United States, his ignorance is utterly amazing. Chief 
inspector at Chicago, yet has never made a study of actino¬ 
mycosis; has made no critical post-mortem examinations of 
affected animals ; has made microscopical examinations from 
tumois of about three cattle; does not know what organs or 
tissues, of either animal or man, become affected, and has 
taken no measures to learn; has practically seen the disease 
only in or about the head ; considers a live steer with an 
actinom} code tumor attached unfit for export, but the same 
steer decapitated as perfectly healthful as food for native or 
foreigner! Dr. Hickman apparently considers his highest 
duty as a meat inspector to be to make meat appear healthy 
. ^ obliterating the evident signs of disease, a position which 
is conspicuous mainly for its lack of honesty. 
When Dr. Hickman returned to Chicago, after his above- 
related testimony, he is reported to have expressed himself as 
very solicitious that the plaintiffs should win, and thus force 
upon the market, lest that, should the 
jury decide the disease contagious, it would ruin our export 
trade. In what? Actinomycotic meat? If Dr. Hickman 
was at all acquainted with the literature of actinomycosis, he 
would know that the decision of a petit jury in this case 
would not alter the views of Crookshank, Fleming, Johne, 
Israel, Ponfic, and others who have given the disease a thor¬ 
ough study. We have more right to fear that our export 
cattle trade will be seriously crippled by the most important 
meat inspector in the country going into the witness-box in a 
case of international interest, and testifying that he cuts off 
cattle s heads to obliterate evidence of disease before export- 
