Bovine Tuberculosis

BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS

Interesting Experiments by New Hampshire Cattle Board.

Readers will be interested in the results of the experiments carried on by the New Hampshire board of cattle commissioners since June of 1897 to determine matters pertaining to the tuberculin test, conducted along the line pursued by the Storrs College people. The New Hampshire commissioners took for experimental purposes ten Holsteins that had responded promptly to the tuberculin squirt that June, but which seemed to be perfectly well. They were isolated, but have received only such treatment as dairy stock ought to have--good ventilation, light, exercise and moderate feed. Tuberculin was squirted into them again in September, but only five responded this time. It was deemed advisable to kill one of these respondents for examination. The commissioners report that the carcass "failed to reveal any more evidences of disease than can be found in a large percentage of the cattle in the country to-day. It was so infinitesimal as to require no consideration upon any health basis, and was strong proof of the extravagance in destroying animals by the test alone."

Only three animals responded to the third tuberculin squirt, December 1, one of them being an animal that had shown signs of tuberculosis. The same three responded again the latter part of February, this year. Later the three were killed, and here is what the commissioners say: "The two that had seemed from physical examination to be all right, but which had continued to respond, showed on post mortem examination slight evidence of disease, but in such condition as to lead to the conclusion that it had not only been arrested but was on the way to ultimate recovery. How much this result was due to the treatment of the animals and how much to the alleged curative qualities of tuberculin is a matter of conjecture only. There are no developments of science in regard to the nature and characteristics of bovine tuberculosis that warrant the destruction of such animals."

At last the remaining six cattle were given the final squirt of tuberculin, but they failed to react, and the commissioners declare that from any point of observation they are "as healthy and vigorous as any cattle in the state."