Diseased Cows by B. E. Tefft

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 26, 1914

Diseased Cows

By B. E. Tefft

B. E. TEFFT

"A Battle for Health in an Infected Dairy Herd," is the subject of an interesting article in the Review of Reviews for July, 1913. The writer is B. E. Rowell, editor of publications in the Illinois College of Agriculture. The length of the article will admit of only brief extracts. He says:—

"The herd belonged to the University of Illinois. Now people with small children, or special liking themselves for all that is sanitary, formed a long waiting list made up of those eager to obtain milk from the university wagons. Of course, such milk must be pure—the cows were in constant contact with science; the dairy was not run for profit. Yet what did accident uncover?

"In the spring of 1906 a grade cow, purchased for experimental purposes, died, and a post-mortem examination revealed a few tubercular centers in the lungs. This was enough to prove the existence of disease in the herd, and it was thought best to give at least such cows as were producing milk for the city trade the tuberculin test. Thirteen out of thirty-four reacted, one or two of the reactions being considered questionable. Five of the thirteen which reacted were slaughtered and examined. The disease was found in each of the five reactors, but in no case had it become generalized. The other cows appeared to be in such good health that they were kept in the herd. Later they were slaughtered, and in nearly every case, while tuberculosis was found, it apparently was not far enough advanced to be 'open' tuberculosis; that is, the germs were not yet escaping from the body.

"In December of 1906 the herd was tested again. Ten of the fifteen tested reacted, five of which had previously reacted. Seven of the reactors were slaughtered at the time.

"In June, 1907, the herd consisted of fifty-five females, including calves. Five which were suspicious, or had reacted, were tested at this time, and two reacted.

"In May, 1908, the next test was made; there were then sixty-seven females in the entire breeding herd; fifty of these, or practically all that were considered old enough, were tested. The result was distinctly startling: twenty-six reactors were found! That meant that fifty-two per cent of the tested herd was infected. Among them were some of the best cows in the herd. All the reactors were removed from the herd. The best of them were placed in quarantine, together with a few others, to secure their progeny, and for experimental purposes; the others were slaughtered."

This battle for bovine health continued several years before success was achieved. Speaking of the general infection of dairy animals, he continues:—

"Only stringent regulation on the part of the State, coupled with willing cooperation on the part of the dairyman and intelligent determination on the part of the consumer to demand clean milk, even if it costs more than the dirty kind, can result in milk free from the germs of tuberculosis.

"Could we know how prevalent tuberculosis is in dairy herds we would find the knowledge thrilling, disagreeably thrilling. A learned professor of Germany, Professor Holzman, of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Halle, when asked what he thought of the tuberculin test, replied: 'Very fine—for America! But should we use it we would have no cattle left in Germany.'"

Of the tuberculin test Mr. Powell says:—

"Dairymen . . . do not want to test their cows—they might lose one. But their neighbors to whom the milk is sold

have children—they might lose one. Which shall it be?

How Infection Proceeds

"Now a dairy herd may become infected with tuberculosis very easily, even though the individual dairyman is conscientiously trying to keep it out. A cow may die upon an adjoining farm. Without examination, the carcass, instead of being burned, as it should be, is dumped into a stream flowing toward and through the dairyman's pasture. The cow had tuberculosis. Now the tubercle bacilli live in running water for four hundred and forty-one days! What chance has the herd below to escape infection?

"There is yet another way in which tuberculosis may be scattered. The man on the adjoining farm may be conscientious and careful, having his animals tested for tuberculosis every six months. He buys a sleek-looking milker; she is tested, does not react, and naturally is placed in the herd. Now everything that is good has not only its use, but its misuse. The tuberculin test is no exception. The cow has been 'plugged;' that is, given a large dose of tuberculin before being sold. Many tuberculous cows so treated develop a power to resist the test, so that if a second dose is given in time, varying from a few days to three months, they fail to react again. This cow drinks in the stream with the others, and the germs she delivers live for two hundred and thirty-two days in sputum exposed in water. Again, what chance has a herd of the dairyman on the lower level of the stream to escape infection? However, if people are willing to work together and put forth a very strenuous effort, the disease can be eradicated. . . . It calls for an extreme and humble regard for cleanliness, which is next to godliness and almost as hard to achieve.

"A healthy cow will not react; that is, show a rise of temperature after an injection of tuberculin, which is a graduated culture of tubercle bacillus. But even this test is not always sure. Most difficult of all to detect, it is said, are the cases that are the most advanced, yet with no outward symptoms."

Professor Hayden says that in the advanced stages the system is too full of poison to react. "Of the forty-seven mature cows in the herd in 1906, only three remained in the herd after 1909, and only five went out for reasons other than tuberculosis." Some of this herd did not react, whose lungs were found a mass of tubercles after slaughter; and of these some were in good flesh and doing their duty as milkers, other reasons having given rise to suspicion. These statements are from high authority, and the result of scientific tests. It is likely that but few dairymen would or could go to the care and expense here described to produce pure milk.

Speaking of the original experimental herd, Mr. Rowell says:—

"Twenty-two of these, or over fifty per cent, reacted. In one group of fourteen cows selected from seven herds in northern Illinois, all but one proved to be tuberculous. All of the forty-one except eight came from the northern part of the State, and most of them originally came from Wisconsin. This gives some idea of the extent of the disease and the means by which it is spreading. These cows all appeared to be in good condition; no one would have thought them diseased.

Near the close of the article he asks a question that must necessarily be of interest to all those engaged in sanitary reform:—

"We may deny ourselves milk, thinking thus to escape the germs of bovine tuberculosis, but how about butter? Dr. Charles Briscoe, who by most painstaking experiment established the time that tubercle bacilli live in water, dried sputum, etc.,—the figures given in the early part of the article were his,—found that they retain their vitality and virulence in cold storage, and thus are all ready to enter you or those nearest and dearest to you when you have saved the price of a pound of the precious commodity. Ten months the germs will live in such conditions, which is a longer time than butter is usually kept in cold storage."

It is true that to be forewarned is to be forearmed—if the warning is heeded.

National City, Cal.