554 
M. R. TRUMBOWER. 
Why lay so much blame upon milk from cows, by the wild 
presumption that many thousand infants die annually from in¬ 
testinal tuberculosis, the result of milk infection, when it is ac¬ 
knowledged that at least seven per cent, of the human family is 
consumptive. 
Does it appear right ? 
How many cases are recorded when cows milk was the 
known cause of such a fatality ? Very few. 
Does it not appear to you that we are attempting to make a 
scape-goat of the useful and almost innocent cow ? Again, I 
say, we are not yet ready in the west to adopt radical measures 
for the suppression of a disease that does not prevail to any 
alarming extent among our herds. 
I am well satisfied that we in Illinois do not have the per¬ 
centage of tuberculous animals that you have in Massachusetts, 
or any other of the eastern states ; our cattle are kept under 
different, better, and more natural conditions ; their lives are 
more active, they are not so closely housed ; there is far less 
exposure to contamination, and above all are not inbred as 
much as many dairy herds of the older states ; the farmer does 
not keep the same family of cows on his farm for several suc¬ 
cessive generations, and then distribute them among his children 
as part of their birthright. The majority of our cows are used 
only one or two years in the dairy and then they are fattened 
for beef while yet young and desirable beef cattle ; the most of 
our beef cattle are sold and slaughtered before they have gained 
maturity, hence we rarely find any evidence of tuberculosis 
among them. 
Therefore I believe that we have a great deal less of this 
disease than is found in the older states. 
If we undertake the eradication of tuberculosis from our 
breeding and dairy herds we assume an endless task. When we 
destroy one per cent, or forty per cent, of our dairy cattle they 
will have to be replaced by an equal number which in turn may 
be infected with tuberculosis. We will have to destroy or 
abandon many cattle barns such as cannot be thoroughly disin- 
