118 
A. W. CLEMENT. 
From the fact that the public is so much dependent upon 
the health of the animals which supply it with food and milk, 
for its comfort and well-being, should not the veterinary pro¬ 
fession be accorded representation in both the city and State 
Boards of Health ? 
Much that pertains to the proper sanitary inspection of 
milk and of meat requires the special knowledge and training 
of the veterinarian. This is recognized in those European 
cities which possess the most enlightened and efficient Boards 
of Health. If those in authority, and the public generally, 
will inform themselves thoroughly concerning the sources of 
danger to public health, some of which have been pointed out 
in this paper, they cannot fail to be convinced of the necessity 
of taking suitable action to guard against these dangers. 
DISCUSSION, 
Dr. Wm. H. Welch said that the demonstration that tuber¬ 
culosis is an infectious disease produced by a specific micro¬ 
organism which has been isolated in pure culture justifies us 
in ranking this disease, at least theoretically, among the pre¬ 
ventable diseases. We may indeed be appalled in instituting 
preventive measures at the apparent hopelessness of our ef¬ 
forts in view of the enormous prevalence of tuberculosis in 
man and animals, and in view of the wide distribution and 
great vital resistance of the tubercle bacillus. Nevertheless, 
these difficulties should not prevent us from adopting all 
available means to check the spread of the most devastating 
of human maladies. 
The most common, although not the sole, sources of tub¬ 
erculous infection appear to be the dust from dried tubercu¬ 
lous sputum and the milk from tuberculous cows. Doubtless, 
at least for adults, the danger is greater from tuberculous 
sputum than from milk. Since however, it has been abun¬ 
dantly demonstrated that the milk of tuberculous cows, even 
when the udder is free from gross lesions, is capable of con¬ 
veying tuberculous infection in not a small proportion of cases 
we must regard the milk of tuberculous cows as dangerous 
and to be rejected for food. 
