264 
THE TUBERCULIN TEST IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
Third. Tests made in this way are at the expense of the 
owner, thereby saving considerable sums to the State Treasury. 
Fourth. Under the present law there is no authority to con¬ 
demn and destroy animals affected with a contagions disease, 
other than section lo of chapter 496 of the Acts of the year 1895, 
which provides as follows :— 
“ When the Board of Cattle Commissioners or any of its members, by an examination 
of a case of contagious disease among domestic animals, beco??ies satisfied that the public 
good requires it^ such Board or Commissioner . . . shall cause it or them to be hilled,” 
etc. 
The Board of Cattle Commissioners are not justified in de¬ 
stroying animals so reported to be tuberculous unless in their 
opinion the veterinarian performing the test is so far reliable 
that they are willing to accept his report upon their own respon¬ 
sibility. If the Board has acted otherwise, the fault is with 
them and not with the law, and the responsibility in such case 
should rest upon the Board. 
Fifth. x\ssuming the veterinarian performing the test to be 
competent, and assuming, as we do, that the law looks to the 
eradication of tuberculosis, there is no more reason why animals 
condemned by a competent private veterinarian whose test the 
Board is willing to accept should not be destroyed and paid for 
than that an animal examined by a member of the Board, or as 
it practically universally happens, by a veterinarian appointed 
by them, should be so destroyed and paid for. 
Sixth. Because substantially all of the work performed by 
private veterinarians in this way is upon entire herds, thereby 
purifying local centres of the disease; whereas the majority 
of the work performed by the Board of Cattle Commissioners is 
under the examination by local inspectors and is on isolated 
animals picked out by physical examination, which is acknowl¬ 
edged to be totally unreliable, leaving the herd substantially as 
infected as before. 
Seventh. Because the act as drawn, if it accomplishes the 
purpose which the majorit}^ desire, will result in enabling the 
Board to destroy without compensation animals found to be 
tuberculous, where the owner, with a meritorious desire to eradi¬ 
cate the disease from his herd, paid the expense of the examin¬ 
ation ; while his neighbor, whose work was performed and paid 
for by the State, receives an adequate return, thereby punishing 
the owners of cattle for themselves seeking out and removing 
this source of danger to the public health, and at the same time 
offering a premium upon the sale of meat and milk from 
diseased animals. 
