TIIK VETERINARIAN AS A SANITARIAN. 
201 
and this must necessarily apply to all such diseases. I consider 
that the inspection of our meat should be under the control of 
qualified veterinary surgeons with a special training in this depart¬ 
ment, and that such inspection should be only conducted at the 
slaughter house, as the lesions of most of our specific diseases are 
localized in some of the viscerse. I may say that I have within 
the past twelve months in this city as veterinary inspector con¬ 
demned as unfit for human food 85 cattle affected with tuberculosis 
and 176 suffering from contagious pleuro-pneumonia, and there 
have also been reported and destroyed 260 horses affected with 
glanders or farcy. 
In thus condemning the carcasses of cattle affected as above I 
am satisfied that many of my professional brethren will disagree 
with me; still I hold that if I err I err upon the safe side. By the 
recent report of the State Dairy Commission, we find that the 
cities of Hew York and Brooklyn consume daily the milk of 
100,000 cows, and basing it upon my experience, I will venture to 
say that not less than three per cent, are affected with tuberculosis 
in one or other of its various forms. 
This important source of food supply should come directly 
under the head of veterinary sanitary inspection. Much has been 
done by the use of the lactometer in preventing the adulteration 
of milk with water. So far good, but is this not a minor offence 
c nnpared with the positive diseased germs conveyed therein from 
the milk producer and the contaminated surroundings, and of 
wldcli the lactometer can give no indication? The practice of 
some Boards of Health, in employing medical men to do the work 
of the veterinary sanitarian, is not creditable to either profession. 
I have found that medical men who have nothing but their medi¬ 
cal education as ■ a qualification for such work are quite incompe¬ 
tent, and with equal propriety and success the order might be 
reversed, and the qualified veterinarian appointed to make medical 
inspections. Let our profession so advance that we will be con¬ 
sidered an indispensable part of every well organized department 
of health, for not alone local but also national interests depend 
Upon the vigilance and painstaking of the qualified veterinary 
sanitarian. 
