1 Noy., 1898. ] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 379 
During my visit, there was not one sickly-looking animal in the whole herd, 
every beast, with the exception of a few of the very young calves, looking in 
the pink of condition, and, as far as the disease tuberculosis was concerned, 
every animal would haye passed a general physical examination ; and yet when 
the tuberculin test was applied, it readily detected the presence of this dread - 
disease in seven of the primest cows, which in truth might be regarded, from 
their breeding, milking qualities, and general appearance, as the pick of the 
herd. 
NOTES ON THE RESULTS OF THE TUBERCULIN TEST. 
It will be seen from the tables of temperatures that, of the entire herd of - 
sixty-eight animals, 7 or just over 10 per cent. were found tuberculous, which 
if we take only the thirty-three milking cows is about 21 per cent.; yet when 
compared with the testing of valuable pedigree herds kept under similar condi- 
tions in other countries, the percentage of tubercular animals is not very great. 
Of the seven tuberculous animals, five were pure-bred Ayrshires, one milking 
Shorthorn, and one pure-bred Illawarra. Two of the Ayrshires—yviz., Annie 
and Snowdrop —being heavy in calf, were only giving a few pints of milk each 
day, the milk being boiled, and afterwards given to the pigs. The remaining 
five, which were much more advanced in pregnancy, had been dried off a good 
many weeks previously. 
The free use of tuberculin and the results obtained in various countries 
are every day proving that tuberculosis in cattle is rarely found to be hereditary, 
for it has been proven beyond dispute that calves of diseased cowsare in 99 per 
cent. of cases healthy when born, and do not inherit the disease. If they are 
removed at once and fed on healthy milk and prevented from living with the 
diseased mother, thereby prevented from becoming infected by inhaling or 
ingesting the disease germs, they will grow up to be healthy cattle. This 
system, first introduced by Professor Bang, of Copenhagen, of raising healthy 
calves from diseased parents, has long been adopted with great success in 
different continental countries, more especially Denmark. 
Tn consideration of these facts, and knowing full well how dairy farmers 
in this colony like to see confirmatory evidence brought forward as a result of 
local observations, I arranged that all the seven cows (which were in calf), 
unless exhibiting any outward dangerous symptoms of tuberculosis, should be 
completely isolated in a separate paddock from the rest of the herd, and kept 
until they had calved, when the young calves would be immediately removed to 
another part of the island and the mothers killed. On the morning before 
leaving the island I made a careful inspection of the seven isolated tubercular 
animals. One cow, a fine vigorous-looking animal, was noticed to be salivating 
somewhat freely, and thick mucous running from the nose, which, on 
miscroscopical examination, was found to contain an abundance of tubercle 
bacilli, whereupon it was decided without any hesitation to have this animal 
killed. On post-mortem examination, it was ascertained that there were several 
large tubercular nodules deeply seated in the dorsal parts of both lungs, while one 
large caseating patch was ulcerating into one of the bronchial tubes. There 
were no tubercles discernible on the outer surface of the lungs, nor on the 
lining of the ribs and diaphragm. The bronchial, pharyngeal, and mediastinal 
glands were all more or less affected, while the mesenteric lymphatic glands 
were distinctly caseous. he liver, spleen, kidneys, and mammary glands were 
apparently healthy. Mr. Bowden has kindly promised to make careful daily 
observations on the remaining six ‘cows, and inform me immediately any 
serious symptoms are manifest. 
It has been pointed out by persons who have little faith in the tuber- 
culin test that the application of the test to healthy milch cows very materially 
affects their milk for several days after the tuberculin is injected. On the 
present occasion careful records of the weights of milk from each of the twenty 
milking cows were kept night and morning for three days before, during, and 
al Q 
