TUBERCULOSIS, ITS CONTROL AND ERADICATION. 
399 
I will not go so far as to say, as some have, that where there 
are no cattle there is no tuberculosis, but I will venture this 
assertion that could we eradicate the disease from man and the 
ox, and keep them free from it, that it would be but a matter of 
time when tuberculosis would be known in history only. And 
if we could eradicate the disease from cattle we would certainly 
have obliterated one of the greatest, if not the primary source 
of infection. 
We have but little trouble in securing the enactment of laws 
and regulations for controlling the spread of diseases that are 
actively contagious and run a rapid course. But with tubercu¬ 
losis the conditions are different ; the most complicating phase 
of the entire subject is the slow and insidious character of the 
disease. 
As you are all familiar with tuberculosis as found in the 
human patient, I will confine my remarks to a brief considera¬ 
tion of the disease as found in cattle. 
_ • 
Tuberculosis of the ox is one of the oldest diseases men¬ 
tioned in veterinary literature, and to-day it is the most com¬ 
mon. Laws forbidding the use of the flesh and milk, and pro¬ 
viding for the destruction of affected animals, date far back in 
the middle ages. 
The opinions of the medical fraternity regarding the cause 
and nature of the malady have varied greatly at different periods, 
and very largely influenced the laws and regulations in vogue. 
From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the disease was 
held to be identical with syphilis in man, and stringent meas¬ 
ures compelling the destruction of tuberculous animals, so far 
as known, were enforced. But when this view was proven 
erroneous the laws were annulled or modified. 
During the present century sentiment again turned against 
the disease, and much progress has been made, especially since 
1882, when the celebrated Dr. Robert Koch, by his discovery 
of the tubercular bacillus, placed the subject on a sound basis. 
ETIOLOGY. 
The direct or primary cause is the tubercular bacillus, while 
