834 
EDWIN B. ACKERMAN. 
on to-day, everything is done by coercion. A dairyman is noti¬ 
fied that on such a day his herd will be tested with tuberculin. 
If he resists or refuses to have his cows thus tested he is arrested 
on the charge of keeping cows without a permit, and his stable 
is immediately quarantined, thus shutting up his business. 
You will notice that Section 120 reads that no diseased cat¬ 
tle shall be brought into the city of New York. Thus, if the 
stable door was kept locked, the dairymen of our city would be 
protected and not get diseased cows in their herds. Now, then, 
as the stable door is open and cows with tuberculosis are 
allowed in, our dairymen get these cows, disease and all, in 
their dairies. The Health Department then comes along and 
confiscates them on a tuberculin test under their unlimited 
power and authority. This is all right as far as it goes, but, 
under Section 31, if they have a private test made, they or their 
attending veterinarian are required to report same to the Health 
Department, and thus they would lose them. If, on the other 
hand, such cases are not reported and the owner tries to dispose 
of same, he is confronted by Sections 75 to 78, which prohibits 
him from leading or driving cows through the streets without a 
permit from the Health Department. He is thus allowed to 
buy cows with the disease, but is hampered from disposing of 
them to any advantage, no matter how slightly the animal is 
affected. 
His loss becomes total, because when the Health Depart¬ 
ment condemns a cow they take the whole carcass, unless the 
owner will sign a release, in which case he can have the hides. 
While the regulations of our Bureau of Animal Industry and 
the conclusions of our National Veterinary Association are that 
in localized tuberculosis the meat may be used for food, while 
o-eneralized tuberculosis should be condemned, and as a good 
proportion of the cows condemned under the tuberculin test 
have only a small localized lesion, their carcasses, skins, etc., 
could be utilized to the owners’ advantage. 
Of course this test is made largely in dairies for the protec¬ 
tion of the milk supply. But under our municipal ordinances 
