CORRESPONDENCE. 
377 
are rendered inefficient from “ endless quarreling,” does not ap¬ 
pear from the facts within the public reach. 
The thought that “ the disease which more especially calls for 
such an organization is pleuro-pneumonia,” must have originated 
in a mind ignorant of the facts in the case, for it is no more the 
desire of the veterinary profession to have a National Veterinary 
Sanitary Bureau established to deal with pleuro-pneumonia alone, 
than was it the purpose of the National Board of Health to limit 
its labors to a consideration of the number of victims claimed by 
yellow fever. Not that contagious pleuro-pneumonia of cattle 
does not offer a matter worthy the serious attention of such a 
bureau, for pecuniarily it does, but because it is one of those di¬ 
seases fraught with but little danger to human health as compared 
with many others which afflict the lower animals. Perhaps the 
Record does not know that Gerlach, the veterinarian, first institu¬ 
ted the investigations which determined the transmissibility of 
tuberculosis through the use of milk drawn from infected animals! 
Can he deny that this disease may also be communicated to man 
through the medium of the expired air? Does the medical pro¬ 
fession know how dangerously prevalent this disease already is, 
and with what rapid progress it is spreading ? Can they deter¬ 
mine its presence in the domestic animals except upon post mor¬ 
tem examination ? Are the dangers from this disease of so little 
importance that it can be placed upon a par with sycosis ? Is it 
not time this boasted medical profession had turned their atten¬ 
tion to the prevention of disease rather than spend their lives as 
simple curers f And if they should determine to make an ad¬ 
vance in this regard, they will find no richer field in which to 
labor than that which includes the animal diseases and their con¬ 
sequent source of disease to man. Tuberculosis is but one of 
these, though probably the most dangerous of all, for the reason 
that the medical profession as a body does not know of its infec¬ 
tious qualities, and no precautions are taken to prevent the every¬ 
day use of milk from animals so affected, or the use of their 
carcasses for food. 
These presumed guardians of human health are equally igno¬ 
rant of the common prevalence, in some parts of the country, of 
