THE TUBERCULIN TEST IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
263 
should not be permitted, certainly not unless it is sold as such 
under stringent State regulation, which we do not believe should 
be permitted, either upon theoretical or upon practical grounds. 
As to the animals slaughtered under the resolve, which had 
not reacted to the test, the report shows that 20 cows were 
slaughtered and post-mortem examinations performed. Of these, 
6 were found to be very slightly infected upon post-mortem ex¬ 
amination ; and out of these 6, 4 might have contracted the 
disease since the test was made (see the Report of Dr. Harold C. 
Ernst). Of the other 2, one was marked as suspicious and held 
for retest. Assuming them all to be errors, it shows of the re¬ 
maining animals not pronounced tuberculous by the test 30 per 
cent, of mistakes. 
We regard the results of these post-mortem examinations as 
of practically no value as determining the question of the value 
of the tuberculin test, for the following reasons :— 
The tests were made more than five weeks prior to the post¬ 
mortem examination. During this time, they remained in the 
infected barns, no sanitary precautions having been taken in the 
meantime ; and as bearing upon this we quote the following 
passage in the majority report :— 
“ We also wish to call attention to the necessity of thoroughly cleansing and disin¬ 
fecting the buildings in which condemned animals have been kept, and this should be done 
at the earliest opportunity.” 
Before the last 20 animals were slaughtered, we requested 
that these animals be retested for the purpose of determining 
the presence of disease by the tuberculin test at the time of the 
slaughter^ but this was not done. In this connection we quote 
the following statement -in the report of Dr. Ernst:— 
“ It is unfortunate that they w'ere not all retested just before the slaughter ; for it is 
quite open to question whether in some of them the infection did not occur after the first 
injection of tuberculin. In none of them was there any extensive infection.” 
We particularly dissent from that portion of the report bear¬ 
ing upon the question of tests made by private veterinarians, for 
the following reasons ;— 
First. The subject-matter of this portion of the report, to¬ 
gether with the act submitted therewith, is not germane to the 
joint order or resolve under which your committee was author¬ 
ized to act. ^ 
Second. The tests made in this case were made by private 
veterinarians ; and so far as the condemnation based upon those 
tests is concerned, which is the matter involved in this portion 
of the report, they are shown to be remarkably accurate. 
