REPORT OF THE TUBERCULOSIS COMMITTEE. 
46i 
fur Bacteriologie, ix, Nos. 9 and 10) Eberin 1891, it was shown 
that out of one hundred and thirty-four animals (cattle) which 
reacted to tuberculin, and were killed, 85.83 per cent, were tu¬ 
berculous. Of one hundred and thirteen animals (cattle) 
which showed no reaction after the injection of tuberculin, 
and were killed, 89.38 per cent, were free from tuberculosis. 
It will thus be seen that, in this summary, published very soon 
after tuberculin was first used for this purpose, there were 
14.18 per cent of failures in the first instance and 10.62 per cent, 
in the second. We must remember that these experiments 
were made by a number of experimenters in different places, 
some skilled and some bungling, all of the autopsies were not 
carefully made, and, above all, the question of the proper dose 
was not then settled, and many of the failures may be attrib¬ 
uted to that. The most recent foreign reports are more uni¬ 
formly favorable. 
In my experience of more than five hundred cases, of 
which about one hundred have been slaughtered, I can count 
but one error in diagnosis : an old cow badly diseased, which 
did not react after a very small dose. All of the other results 
have been most satisfactory. Every cow that gave a reaction 
and was killed was shown to have tuberculosis. 
By the use of tuberculin, then, it is possible to isolate the 
diseased animals and make sure that those remaining are free 
from tuberculosis. If the stable be now disinfected and the 
herd retested after an interval of six months, to find cases that 
might, by some almost impossible chance, have escaped the 
first examination, we shall have freed the herd from tubercu-/ 
losis, and it only remains to exclude diseased additions to keep 
clear of the scourge. 
An important question that presents itself is: What shall 
be done with the cows that react? Our previous experience 
and present knowledge allow but one answer to this question, 
and it is, destroy them. All animals that react, ignoring the 
very few possible exceptions, are tuberculous, but it should 
be remembered that some of them suffer to but a very slight 
degree. - 
In some of the animals we may, upon making the autopsy, 
