EXPERIMENTS WITH TUBERCULIN ON NONTUBERCULOUS COWS. 
127 
Taken all in all then there is nothing in the indications of 
temperature that would indicate, either at the time of the test, 
or later, that the tuberculin had proved in any way inimical to 
the general health. Had the health been impaired by the re¬ 
peated operation of the tuberculin it might have been expected 
that the constitutional disturbance would have been more dis¬ 
tinctly marked in the later tests than in the earlier ones, and as 
no such tendency is observable it may be safely concluded that 
so far as illness can be indicated by a variation of temperature 
tests doses of tuberculin, in the absence of the bacillus, does not 
seem to produce any such illness in the healthy animal. 
It has been alleged that the repeated use of tuberculin on 
animals slightly tuberculous, abolishes the tendency to reaction 
under the use of this agent. If this were true it would argue 
rather a curative than a malific action of the tuberculin, but in 
other experiments, I have found the second test made a week 
or more after the first to produce a no less marked reaction so 
that this alleged tolerance need not be taken into account in 
the cases before us. 
RESPIRATION AND PULSE. 
As regards the record of the pulse and breathing given in 
the tables it is sufficient to say that they furnish no real indica¬ 
tion of a deviation from the most perfect health. In cattle 
pulse and breathing vary so widely under different conditions of 
the environment, digestive organs, exercise etc., that it would 
take very much greater variations than those given in the tables 
to give true indications of disease. 
MILK RECORD. 
The milk record may be accepted as a more sensitive test 
of constitutional injury than temperature, breathing or pulse. 
It is also farther reaching than these other indications, as it 
involves a healthy exercise of all the bodily functions, and above 
all those of appetite, digestion, assimilation and secretion. An 
appreciable disturbance of the health at any one point will 
usually be manifested in this delicate balance, in a variation of 
quantity or quality of the milk. 
