p. 10 | TUBERCULOSIS IN COWS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 18, 1897

TUBERCULOSIS IN COWS.

The Public Health Journal of December, in speaking of the investigations of the New York Board of Health, says:—

The discoveries thus far, when only about 700 of the 2,500 cows within the limits of this city have been examined, with a result of finding about 15 per cent. infected, has, it is admitted, made a deep impression upon the members of the Board of Health. The conclusion was forced upon them that the narrow limits of this city were by far too small for the operation of such a beneficent examination, and that a law should be passed making compulsory the examination of all cows in the State.

Such a law now prevails in the State of Massachusetts, which stands as the pioneer in the movement. An ordinance, which has a similar effect also, is on the law books of the city of Milwaukee. Dr. E. W. Martin, of this city, who probably stands near the head of the list of original investigators of milk in relation to health, remarked only the other day that it seemed strange that the human animal could go on using cows' milk as a chief article of diet from time immemorial and not discover that it might, under certain conditions, become a vehicle of disease. That such is the fact, and that consumption may be transmitted from tuberculous cows, has been made very clear in the last five years—a result of the unfailing method of diagnosing offered by Prof. Koch's discovery of tuberculin.

Under proper scientific methods it has been found possible to find out positively whether a cow is tubercular or not. The diagnosis by this preparation has never been known to fail.