BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
271 
While in the Bulletin No. 7, published in the fall of 1894, 
by the Buieau of Animal Industry, on “Investigations Con¬ 
cerning Bovine Tuberculosis,” Dr. Smith says: 
“ Tuberculosis among domesticated animals, more particu¬ 
larly among cattle, has during the past few years received a 
large share of attention, mainly because of the possible direct 
influence on human health. With this idea in the foreground 
the bearing of this malady on agricultural interests has been 
more or less obscuied. As a result we have a great mass of 
publications on the hygienic aspect of tuberculosis and but 
very little on the prevention of this disease among cattle. 
Many of the more valuable contributions to our knowledge 
have been made in order to define more definitely what degree 
of tuberculosis makes an animal unfit for human food. This 
point of view, while bringing out now and then valuable facts, 
does not pay sufficient attention to the animal during life. 
' What to do in order to reduce the high percentage of infec¬ 
tion among living animals has been tacitly ignored in all but a 
few recent publications. It became evident to the writer on 
beginning these studies, that this was, after all, the most 
1 important aspect of the serious problem of bovine tuberculo¬ 
us. If the disease can be restricted and suppressed among cattle 
during life the hygienic problem will take care of itself. 
“ T° attack tuberculosis as it exists at present is undoubt¬ 
edly a most difficult problem, and the conditions which tend 
to repress or to augment its further dissemination are very 
complex. No single measure, however sweeping, is likely to 
be successful. A number of details will have to receive 
careful attention and, in the end, the success will depend 
; largely upon the amount of intelligent watchfulness constantly 
exercised in various directions by the stock owner. The 
I'wide dissemination and the localized intensity of this disease 
1 will require, above all, concerted action in attempts for its 
repression. Though a strictly bacterial disease and intro- 
,'duced into the body only by the tubercle bacillus, which is 
Ulways derived from some pre-existing case of disease, tuber¬ 
culosis differs, nevertheless, from most animal diseases in very 
important particulars. Its unknown beginnings in the body, 
