SOCIETY MEETINGS 
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the Keystone State, being next called upon, addressed the meet¬ 
ing. He said : 
This subject was under discussion at the U. vS. V. M. A. meeting at 
Des Moines three 5'ears ago, and at that time there were some who advo¬ 
cated it, but one of the speakers doubted the efficiency of these sanitary 
measures, and of the power of veterinarians to control them. 
In approaching this subject we must not do it as the man who was in 
danger and compelled to praj', and as he doubted .the existence of a God, 
he said, “ Oh ! God, if there be one in heaven, if there is one, protect me 
if you have power.” AVe do not want to go at this in that way. We 
want to know if there are dangers, how they can be avoided. Of course, 
there are some who will sa}" that veterinarians recommend these measures 
because the}^ will be employed, because they will receive money, and of 
course it may be that motives of that kind will be found, but there are 
other reasons, and because they are the best experts on these questions. 
INIeat inspection is nothing more nor less than applied comparative 
patholog}', so that if meat inspection is to be efficient it must be carried 
out by those who have had some training in that line ; this also applies 
to milk inspection. Is there any danger from the ingestion of milk from 
a tuberculous cow ? Dr. Peters admits that there is danger from the 
consumption of milk from a tuberculous cow, and I have no doubt that 
Dr. Peters has seen a great many that prove to be excessively diseased 
who seemed to be healthy during life. It is an unquestionable truth 
that cows who appear to be well can produce bad milk. Cows’ milk has 
been found that killed thirteen per cent, of guinea-pigs, showing that the 
active tubercle bacilli were there. Of course, whether they were numer¬ 
ous enough to infect a person, no one can tell, for no one will use milk 
of that character. 
It is said by those who are informed on this subject that there is no 
case on record where it has been shown conclusively that tuberculosis 
has been conveyed by the use of milk. That is unquestionably true ; 
there is no case on record where we are able to say positive!}', but at the 
same time we know that the germ of tuberculosis in the cow is the same 
as tuberculosis in man ; we know that cows furnish milk containing large 
numbers of tubercle bacilli, and that in many cases people have tubercu¬ 
losis in the intestinal tract. When a child from a healthy family con¬ 
tracts tuberculosis and dies, there is often a great deal of circumstantial 
evidence to uphold our theory, and men have been hung on circumstan¬ 
tial evidence no stronger than we have. 
The experimental work that has been carried on in Massachusetts has 
gone to show that there is a slight physical difference between the tub¬ 
ercle bacilli of cattle and man. They also show that when these two are 
injected in cows, the bovine is more virulent than the human, and that 
the germs from the bovine will kill a man quicker than those from 
human. We do know that where a germ has been grown in a num¬ 
ber of generations it acquires a higher degree of virulence than it has 
after it has been carried through a few generations. Germs from the 
bovine source injected into horses will kill quicker than from the human, 
and we all know that horses are not susceptible to tuberculosis. 
We will never know that human beings contract tuberculosis from 
.drinking milk until we are.able to take a man and lock him up in a glass 
