American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man .Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. 
Established 1842 
Volume 113 
For the Week Ending April 19, 1924 
Number 16 
How Can We Get Rid of T B ? 
This Great Cattle Scourge is Still With Us in Spite of Millions Spent for Control 
L AST year the New York State Legisla¬ 
ture appropriated five million dollars to 
[ be used by the Department of Farms 
and Markets in a war on cattle tubercu¬ 
losis. This vast sum was used up long before the 
end of the year, and the legislature this year will 
probably appropriate three million more, making 
a total of eight million in two years in one State. 
Was this great expenditure of public money 
justified? Who got the money? Could it have 
been spent to better advantage? What progress 
was made, if any, in cleaning up the disease? No 
problem of any kind is of more vital concern, and 
every farmer and every taxpayer 
certainly has the right to know the -.■ ■■ - 
answers to the above questions. 
In fact, it is surprising, with the 
tremendous importance that this 
terrible disease is assuming in 
America, and with the great sums 
that are being spent annually to 
control it, that the general public 
and even dairymen themselves know 
so little about cattle tuberculosis 
and what is being done to control it. 
Just take a brief look at the situation 
in New York State' alone. There are 
approximately two million dairy 
cattle in the State. At a very con¬ 
servative estimate, at least 15 to 20 
per cent, of this number are infected 
to a greater or less extent with 
tuberculosis. Probably the average 
is much higher than this, but it is 
startling enough even at this figure. 
It is much higher in some counties, 
particularly in the fluid milk produc¬ 
ing counties. AVork done so far in 
eradication in Delaware County, one 
of the greatest dairy counties in 
America, for instance, shows that 
18 per cent., or practically half, of 
the cows in that county have tubercu- .. - 
losis. New York is no worse, in 
fact it is better, than many other States. 
These figures alone should bring every farmer 
face to face with the startling situation menacing 
the very fundamentals of our industry. It is a 
situation, too, that has danger to the farmer 
from many different angles. Already consumers 
are talking about health regulations which will 
demand that all milk sold in fluid form must 
come from herds proven free from tuberculosis. 
Frankly, can a consumer be blamed for such 
demand? 
Some folks have made the statement that milk 
infected with tuberculosis germs is not dangerous. 
Such people simply do not know what they are 
talking about, for milk loaded with cattle tubercu¬ 
losis germs is unfit for human consumption and 
is especially unfit for children. To be sure, 
pasteurization will probably kill most of the 
germs, but who wants to drink or eat food filled 
with dangerous microbes even though they are 
dead? Incidentally, be it remembered that it is 
only in the very largest cities that milk is pas¬ 
teurized at all. Infected milk consumed on the 
farm is never so treated. 
What are the real facts about the danger to 
children? Medical authorities agree that 25 per 
cent, of the children dying of tuberculosis under 
sixteen years of age die with bovine tuberculosis; 
58 per cent, of the glandular cases of tuberculosis, 
and 59 per cent, of the abdominal tuberculosis 
come from bovine bacteria. So much for the 
health side of the problem. 
Now what about the dollar side of the problem 
to the farmers? No animal can be fully efficient 
that is not well, and an animal with virulent 
tuberculosis germs at work in her is not a well 
animal. In its incipient or beginning stages, the 
disease probably does not make much difference 
in production, and there are thousands of farmers 
who point to the fact that their very best and 
Is The T B Control Program Getting Results ? 
F OR at least thirty years the New York State Legislature 
has been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly 
to control and eradicate cattle tuberculosis. Great sums have 
been spent for the same purpose in other States. Last year the 
legislature in New York appropriated five million dollars. The 
appropriation this year will amount to over three million. 
In spite of all of this money and effort this great scourge has 
continued to grow in most sections. There are counties where 
over half of the cattle are affected and the average for the entire 
State is probably well over 15 per cent. The object of the article 
on this page and others which will follow is to give every farmer 
the exact facts, so far as we can obtain them, about this problem 
which so vitally affects him as a dairyman and as a taxpayer. 
What is the present program for fighting tuberculosis? Is it 
fair to the dairyman? Is it fair to the taxpayer? Is it making any 
headway? If not, why not? Do you know what these plans are? 
What experience have you had? Has this experience been satis¬ 
factory so far as the future is concerned? Help us discuss this 
most vital problem by telling us what you think .—The Editors. 
apparently healthiest cows were the ones to 
react to the tuberculosis test. This is true, for the 
disease does seem to attack our best animals. 
But the fact that these animals are good pro¬ 
ducers, even when they are proven to have the 
disease, does not prove that they might not have 
been even better producers were they disease free. 
Of course, after the disease has made some little 
progress, the loss in production is very evident. 
Therefore, if we multiply the loss of efficiency 
per animal by the number of infected animals, one 
can get some idea of what tuberculosis is costing 
dairymen. This is to say nothing of the further 
loss the diseased animals cause by spreading it to 
other and healthy stock. It does not take into 
consideration either the effect tuberculosis has in 
lowering the prices on stock for sale, including the 
loss by embargoes. Then, too, there are all of 
these millions of dollars spent by States and 
counties and by dairymen themselves throughout 
the country in fighting the disease. There is a 
further loss to purebred owners of their best 
animals which no reasonable amount of indemnity 
can cover. 
This is a situation then faced by every dairy¬ 
man and by every consumer. What about it? 
What has been done in the past, how much 
has 
In 
been made, what is the present 
other words, “where do we go 
progress 
program 
from here? ” 
In the early days of dairying in this country, 
there was probably very little tuberculosis among 
cattle. We say “probably” because very little 
was known about it. In those days there might 
have been a considerable amount of disease 
present without its being recognized. But like 
a good many other plant and animal diseases 
with which the farmer has to contend, it has 
developed step by step with our more intensive 
farming. As every one knows, sunlight is an 
enemy of germs. When our cattle 
- g ran outdoors a good part of the year, 
and were housed in cold windy barns 
the rest of the year, they did not 
give much milk, but on the other 
hand, they were mostly free from 
disease. But with the production of 
large quantities of milk per animal 
the year around, with all of the many 
complications, cattle tuberculosis has 
grown by leaps and bounds. One of 
the worst sources of contagion was 
the feeding of unpasteurized skim 
milk to calves. 
New York State has been making 
appropriations of several hundred 
thousand dollars a year, off and on, 
since the early nineties. Splendid 
work has been done by other States, 
particularly in recent years, in Massa¬ 
chusetts, New Jersey and Pennsyl¬ 
vania. BUT UNTIL VERY RE¬ 
CENTLY, PARTICULARLY NEW 
YORK STATE, NO PROGRESS 
HAS BEEN MADE. The authori¬ 
ties did well just to keep pace with 
the disease. 
A number of years ago great 
excitement was raised when Dr. 
r " ' “ Koch of Berlin announced that he 
had discovered a cure for tubercu¬ 
losis called tuberculin. Like other sensational 
“cures,” tuberculin proved of little value in 
curing tuberculosis, but it was found to be almost 
100 per cent. accurate when injected into animals 
in determining whether they had the disease or 
not. One of the chief reasons why the early 
progress in tuberculosis control was so slow, was 
that veterinarians depended upon physical ex¬ 
amination, and physical examination is of very 
little value in determining whether or not a cow 
has the disease, but tuberculin made more 
progress possible. 
But speaking for NewYork and adjoining States, 
and probably for other States, up to 1917, the war 
against cattle tuberculosis was a losing one. In 
spite of the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent 
and the large amount of work done, the disease 
continued to spread. The chief difficulty was that 
after the disease was eliminated from a group of 
cattle the herd became reinfected, making it 
necessary to do the work over and over again. 
The main reason for this reinfection was the 
lack of knowledge and the lack of care and 
cooperation on the part of the cattle owners to 
observe certain fundamental rules for keeping 
their herds clean after they were once free from 
(Continued on page J/ 06 ) 
