34 Reporr or DEPARTMENT OF ANIMAL HUSBANDRY OF THE 
the people of Denmark have been able to greatly reduce the very 
high percentage of tuberculous cattle and at the same time mini- 
mize the loss they formerly sustained by the frequent death of dis- 
eased animals. 
Among the first, if not the first, to put the Bang method to a 
test in this country was the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment 
Station.1* They began in January, 1896, with 16 reacting animals 
and 18 healthy ones. In February, 1899, they had 27 healthy ani- 
mals, all the progeny of the group of tuberculous cattle. Russell 
pointed out at that time that the method afforded a practical and 
often a most desirable way to replace a tuberculous herd. 
The Bang method has been applied with great success in Hun- 
gary where the reports show that many highly infected herds have 
been freed of the disease in from four to six years. In Norway 
and Sweden the results have been equally good. Prof. Regner! 
states that the percentage of reacting animals among 36,149 cattle 
was, at the beginning of the application of this method, 33.6 per cent. 
After a period of from two to nine years it has been reduced to 
4.7 per cent. It is not the purpose of the method to return to the 
sound herd animals that have reacted but which after a period of 
one or more years fail to react. Experience has shown that a 
variable number of reacting animals will stop reacting in from six 
to eighteen months and remain apparently in a sound condition. 
The present interpretation of this phenomenon is that the disease 
has been arrested, but because the time limits of the life of tubercle 
bacteria residing in encapsuled lesions is not known, it cannot be 
considered safe to return these animals to the healthy herd. 
This method has the redeeming feature that it requires the 
elimination of cattle that have no real value because of the advanced 
stage of the disease but enables the owner to obtain the actual 
worth of the others. It has been possible because of the great value 
of tuberculin in detecting the infected animals that still appeared to 
be in perfect health. 
“a Russell, H. L. The history of a tuberculous herd of cows. Wis. Agr. 
Exp. Station, Bul. 78, 1890. 
’ Regner, Gustav.— The suppression of tuberculosis among domesticated 
animals. Eighth International Veterinary Congress. Budapest, Sept., 1905. 
