STATE CONTROL OF TUBERCULOSIS. 
541 
of these 530 barns it was found that only 42 had been cleansed 
and disinfected, and in 488 absolutely nothing had been done in 
the way of cleansing. Out of the 530 only 93 were respectably 
clean, and 435 were filthy. The usefulness of this work is well 
shown by the results following these visits. 
By the end of August a second visit had been made on 158 
barns where the owner had previously been found negligent. 
Of these 158 barns visited the second time, 134 were found 
cleansed and disinfected and in only 22 had nothing been done. 
These 22 were all in a dirty condition, several of them being 
absolutely filthy. Such work as this is exceedingly important, 
not only because of the practical amount of good it does in re¬ 
moving infectious material from the barns, but in an educational 
way as well. This I believe is the key to the whole question, 
and it is surely something that no intelligent man can reason¬ 
ably object to. 
During the early months of the year, the testing of herds by 
private test, where the owner seemed to care for little except how 
to get a good appraisal for his cattle, became so frequent that in 
June the L-egislature passed a law to the effect that “No person 
having animals tested with tuberculin shall be entitled to com¬ 
pensation from the treasury of the Commonwealth for any ani¬ 
mals that react to the tuberculin test, unless such testing be 
done by the State Board of Cattle Commissioners, or their au¬ 
thorized agents acting as such at the time of the test, and such 
testing shall be subject to the supervision and control of the 
State Board of Cattle Commissioners.” “ This act shall take 
effect upon its passage. (Approved June 10, 1897.)” The im¬ 
mediate effect of this law was to shut off indiscriminate, irre¬ 
sponsible testing. 
The State is willing to assist an owner to purge his herd 
from disease if the owner is in earnest, but before it will under¬ 
take to assist, it requires him to sign a written agreement that 
he will observe the sanitary regulations prescribed by the Board, 
and that he will not introduce any animals into his herd with¬ 
out first subjecting them to the tuberculin test. In this way 
