DIAGNOSIS AND PREVENTION OF TUBERCULOSIS. 
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ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
DIAGNOSIS AND PREVENTION OF TUBERCULOSIS. 
By J. F. Winchester, D.V.S., Lawrence, Mass. 
A paper read before the Massachusetts Veterinary Medical Association. 
It is essential in discussing the diagnosis of tuberculosis to 
bear in mind that the veterinary surgeon may be called upon to 
say whether an animal is affected or not, under two very differ¬ 
ent circumstances. He may, in one instance, be expected to 
make a differential diagnosis in a case where the animal is 
noticed to be ill, and regarding which his advice is desired by 
the owner; or in another animal, as a veterinary inspector, he is 
expected to recognize the disease, when to the ordinary ob¬ 
server and owner the animal has the general appearance of 
health. It certainly must be apparent that if there exists any 
uncertainty in the first of these conditions by a physical exam¬ 
ination, how much greater must that difficulty be in the second. 
In order to illustrate this difference, one ought to bear in mind 
the lesions found at the autopsy of animals that have died from, 
or killed as being helplessly diseased, in the first instance; and 
those lesions of tuberculosis which are found in animals killed for 
food and supposed to be healthy at time of slaughter, in the second. 
The lesions of this malady have a very different distribution 
when we take account, not merely of the animals about which 
veterinary advice is sought, but of all cases in which tubercu¬ 
losis in any degree is brought to light by a reasonably careful 
post-mortem examination. An absolutely certain diagnosis can 
seldom or never be made by ordinary clinical methods. 
Tuberculosis may be acute or chronic, and the former may 
run its course in a few weeks, while the latter may last for years. 
At the beginning of the acute form, and for an indefinite length 
of time in the chronic, the disease process may be confined to 
one organ or to one region of the body, and the symptoms will 
vary according to the time involved. 
