172 
EDITORIAL. 
work prescribed for the meeting - , together with the questions 
which are to be discussed. In the organization of the perma¬ 
nent committee we find the names of prominent veterinarians, 
such as Nocard, Leblanc, Rossignol, and many others ; and 
the prominence of the veterinarian, and the value of the ser¬ 
vices he is competent to render in facilitating the labors of 
the congress, become the more evident as we refer to the 
positions to which our colleagues on the committee are as¬ 
signed. Five members of the profession may be counted in a 
list of thirteen members, a number which is well justified 
when it is considered that among the questions to be treated 
are such as “the relative influence of contagion and heredity 
in the propagation of tuberculosis ; ” “ the various means of 
diagnosis in bovine tuberculosis, and especially researches in 
the inoculation of tuberculin as a sure means of diagnosis of 
the disease inbovines;” and “the necessity for generalization 
of the practice of meat inspection.” None of these questions 
can very well be solved without the assistance of the veteri¬ 
narian. 
The question of tuberculosis is not only occupying the at¬ 
tention of European sanitarians, but is also attracting notice 
on this side of the Atlantic. Without alluding to the official 
action of the New York State Board of Health, whose work 
of last year is to be resumed at an early date, the public at 
large begins to be awake to the existence of the disease in the 
United States, and inquiries are made from various directions 
of those who are supposed to know more than others on the 
subject. The Breeders Gazette of June 14th prints a letter 
from Dr. E. Salmon in answer to an inquiry as to the percent¬ 
age of tuberculosis in dairy cattle, and we extract so much 
of the letter as answers this inquiry. Coming from such an 
authority, we feel that certain statements which we made 
some years ago on this subject are receiving an approval 
based upon facts of whose existence we were then not even 
aware. The letter, in part, reads as follows : 
The percentage of tuberculosis in dairy cattle in this country has never been 
ascertained, and in Europe we may say that the information on this subject is 
of more or less fragmentary nature. A few investigations have been made as to 
