THE PREVENTION OF TUBERCULOSIS. 
30T 
and practice than all the rest, a feature which as yet has 
hardly received recognition, far less the adoption of any ade¬ 
quate provisions for its correction, viz., the eradication of 
those conditions which make tuberculosis possible, or rather, 
I should say, those conditions which make the continuance of 
the disease an absolute certainty. 
Ol all the various much-talked-of causes of tuberculosis, 
whether they be hereditary predisposition, system of breed¬ 
ing, heavy feeding, forced milking, filth, bad drainage or any 
of the many which can be mentioned, there is not to my mind 
one or half a dozen put together which in any way approach 
in harmfulness the injury which is caused by the almost uni¬ 
versal system which obtains in the arrangement of the 
ordinary cow stall. It would baffle the ingenuity of man to 
contrive a system which would be better calculated to en¬ 
sure the spreading of a contagious pulmonary disease. There 
the creatures stand shackled side by side and cheek to cheek, 
anchored to one spot week in, week out, month after montty 
breathing and rebreathing the same air, coughing and ex¬ 
pectorating into each others faces. What wonder that we 
have tuberculosis in our herds, and what marvel that it 
spreads ? 
. lt has been Proved time and again that once the disease 
gains a foothold in a herd, it will progress as rapidly in the 
cleanest and best ventilated barns as it will in the dirtiest 
and least cared for. I do not wish to be understood as de¬ 
crying the necessity for cleanliness and ample cubic space, 
but I do claim that their importance is altogether secondary 
to another requirement which is hardly ever observed, viz., 
the necessity of to some extent isolating the individuals of a 
herd from each other. 
It is a common saying that tuberculosis is a highly con¬ 
tagious disease. I question the statement very much. My 
experience leads me to believe that its range of infection is 
very limited indeed, probably not more than a few feet at the 
most. For instance, the spread of the disease among ani¬ 
mals kept out of doors is practically unknown ; or, in other 
woids, diseased and healthy animals can herd together in the 
