THE TUBERCULIN TEST. 
531 
THE TUBERCULIN TEST. 
ITS USE IN DETERMINING THE PRESENCE OF BOVINE CON¬ 
SUMPTION. 
By H. P. Clute, V.S., ex-State Veterinarian, Marinette, Wis. 
Read before the Wisconsin Agricultural Society. 
There are many views presented to the public through 
certain agricultural papers, that are non-professional, and from 
parties that have had no experience whatever with the disease 
or tuberculin test for the same, or have arrived at a conclusion 
from reading articles from such sources as mentioned, or carry 
the idea that because they have never had tuberculosis in their 
family or their own herd of cattle, that such a disease does not 
exist to any extent. I very frequently have filed copies of 
the Breeder's Gazette , dug up and shown me through the coun¬ 
try, to prove some insane idea about tuberculosis or the tuber¬ 
culin test. All skeptical parties are very easily convinced after 
they have once watched a tuberculin test on a herd where there 
was known infection, and the subsequent post-mortems of the 
reacting animals, with the exception of one man, Dr. Rodder- 
mund, of sinall-pox fame. He admitted the animals were 
diseased, but thought that the rest of the herd ought to be 
slaughtered, to convince him that they were not in the same 
condition ; although he had seen pus enough, had he been in 
a smearing business that day, to cover him from head to foot, 
in which condition he would look well in an antiseptic glass 
cage, placed in some corner of a dime museum. There 
are too many Rod derm unds in regard to the contagion of tub¬ 
erculosis. 
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease, the germ of which was 
discovered by Professor Koch in the year 1882. Up to that 
time the disease was thought, by a majority of the medical pro¬ 
fession, to be hereditary in most cases. As soon as the bacillus 
was isolated, it gave a field for experiments, which have proven 
the disease to be contagious in the larger percentage of 
cases. 
