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48 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
and partly due to prejudice. . In the first place, many of the 
farmers refuse the use of tuberculin, for the simple reason that. 
they are afraid to know to what extent tuberculosis may be 
present in their herds. They fear that if it is known that they 
have a number of cattle in their herd that are infected with the 
disease it will be difficult for them to sell their milk, difficult 
for them to dispose of their cattle, and they will suffer finan- 
cially from the test. They prefer to remain in ignorance and 
to use their animals freely as if all were healthy. This has 
undoubtedly been the basis of a large part of the objection to 
the use of tuberculin. Moreover, in some countries, and es- 
pecially is this true in our own, the customs and laws have 
been such as to demand the immediate slaughter of all animals 
which react to the tuberculin test. The objection to this is too 
well known to need emphasis. The farmer’s good sense has told 
him that it is needless and that it means an unnecessary waste. 
When, as the result of a tuberculin test, there are slaughtered 
a number of animals, several of which show only such a slight 
trace of tuberculosis as would be indicated by a single small 
tuberculous nodule, the farmer very rightly feels that he has 
been subject to trouble and to financial loss which was not 
demanded by the condition of things. He has rightly claimed 
that such animals need not be slaughtered. They are not 
sources of danger to the public, and perhaps not sources of 
danger to his herd. The farmer then blames the tuberculin 
test, when the blame should have been upon the law demand- 
ing the indiscriminate slaughter of reacting animals. The 
tuberculin test picks out too incipient cases to justify the 
slaughter of all animals thus reacting. This fact, coupled with 
the’ fear on the part of the farmer to know the condition of 
things in his ‘herd, probably explains ail of the real opposition 
that has arisen to the use of tuberculin. 
The objections thus arising, however, come not from the 
use but from the abuse of the tuberculin test. The use of 
tuberculin should be for the purpose of determining the pres- 
ence of the disease, and thus benefiting the farmer rather than 
doing him an injury. When the tuberculin is used properly, 
as it is now more and more rapidly being used in European 
countries, the farmer is universally benefited and never injured 
by it. He is always the gainer and not the loser. When the 
farmers find out, as they are gradually doing, that the test 
simply enables them to pick out the tuberculous animals and 
does not force them to lose by slaughter a large number of 
