Part 75

The usual provision is in force that no indemnity is allowed for any animal that entered the state not more than three months before, and without the tuberculin test demanded of all such stock animals.

Indemnities are restricted to $25 per head and under for non-registered animals and grades, and $50 for registered thoroughbreds. The average appraised price has been $23.

On the whole an excellent work is being done in Pennsylvania, and herds now tested are found to contain not more than half as many infected animals as did those tested a few years ago. A better showing would doubtless have been made if the State appropriation had permitted the board to give attention to all applications made.

The good results may be attributed to the adoption of a system which secured the confidence and trust of the stockowner: he sees that the State has no desire to oppress nor injure him; he is in no dread of a high-handed confiscation of his remunerative property without indemnity; while advanced cases are destroyed he is left the option of segregating his latent cases and marketing their products under the precaution of sterilization; he can raise the progeny of these animals if he will, under similar precautions; he can sell his stock and its product under government certificate if they prove sound; he can avail of government assistance in protecting his herd against reinfection, by the testing of animals to be purchased. Under such a system there is no object in secreting infection, and in underhanded sale of tuberculous animals, with the spread of the disease into new centres. Even the tardy or inimical stockowner is roused to action by public opinion, when he finds the market for his suspected product growing more and more uncertain, and feels the daily encreasing pressure of opinion among neighboring owners, that he is exceeding his rights in maintaining an infected herd in the very midst of their purified ones.

A most important item of the system of Pennsylvania, and of sixteen other states, is the compulsory testing of all stock cattle introduced into the State. This has the further support of the Federal Government which demands a tuberculin test of every stock bovine animal imported into the United States. This is a natural corollary of every attempt to restrict or extirpate tuberculosis from a State, but when through willful blindness a great State like New York, repudiates a measure of this kind, it but makes its dairy and breeding herds the depository of the reacting animals that other states wisely exclude. The sifting process goes on at Buffalo and other centres and the New York herds are loaded with the rejected, diseased animals. Under the operation of this, and the denial of indemnity for animals slaughtered, it will be wonderful, if the New York stock owner is not soon roused up from his idle dream of fancied security, by a great extension of the infection.

Generally Applicable Measures. Under any system many special rules will be demanded in individual cases, which it will require the skill of the expert sanitarian to apply, and which cannot be referred to here. The following are generally applicable whether by the owner in his particular herd, or by the State or other authority dealing with the subject.

1st. On discovery of a case of tuberculosis, test the whole herd with tuberculin. (See Tuberculin Testing.)

2d. Remove all animals that show a typical reaction.

3d. Destroy and burn, boil or deeply bury all cases of the disease, unless it is decided to form an isolated herd of latent cases which are in good condition and apparent good health.

4th. In case of doubt or disturbing influence which may have caused rise of temperature (calving, heat, exposure, concurrent disease, changes in management, etc.), keep the suspected animal apart for four weeks and test again.

5th. Repeat the test every six months, and if two successive tests show no indication of tuberculosis, the herd may be accounted sound.

6th. As soon as tuberculous animals have been removed from a stable, let it be vacated and thoroughly disinfected with chloride of lime, 4 ozs. to 1 gallon of water, and enough quick lime to make a good whitewash which will show if even a square inch is missed. When chloride of lime is objectionable because of its tainting the milk, use mercuric chloride 1 dr. to 1 gallon water, with enough sal ammoniac to make it freely soluble. The roof, walls, and especially the floor, gutter and feeding trough must be first thoroughly scraped, washed and cleaned, all rotten wood work must be removed, and, in case of double boarded walls, the boards must be removed on one side to permit of a thorough application. Utensils should be scalded and dressed with carbolic acid, 1:20. A stable incapable of disinfection should be abandoned for a length of time or burned.

7th. In making new purchases, avoid any herd in which tuberculosis has appeared, or that has had sickness or deaths in recent years.

8th. Do not purchase from city, suburban nor swill stables.

9th. Do not take a cow that is in ill health or low condition, especially one with cough, nasal discharge, foul breath, wheezing breathing, hard nodules under the skin, diseased udder, swollen bones or joints, or a tendency to scour or bloat.

10th. Test every animal with tuberculin before admitting it into the herd.

11th. Do not admit strange cattle to house, field or yard. Keep apart from the herd until tested.

12th. Keep each animal strictly to its own stall and manger.

13th. Board up between the stalls in front so that no two cows can feed from the same manger.

14th. Be especially watchful of the older cows and on the slightest sign of ill health, separate and subject to the tuberculin test.

15th. In case a herd of cattle is found to be tuberculous, subject to the tuberculin test all domestic animals that have mingled with them freely and fed from the same troughs. Remove those that show a reaction.

16th. Exterminate the vermin (rats, mice, sparrows) in a building where tuberculosis has prevailed.

17th. Let no consumptive person attend on cattle nor prepare their food.

HYGIENE OF MILK AND MEAT. SANITARY POLICE MEASURES.

This has a reference to both man and beast and involves measures of private and public hygiene alike. In man, as we have seen, milk is the source of greatest danger, being habitually taken uncooked, whereas meat has been usually subjected to a high temperature before it comes to the table.

Milk. The unsterilized milk of the tuberculous cow must always be regarded with grave suspicion. Especially is the drinking of milk warm from the cow to be strongly condemned. The feeding experiments of Vilemin, Gerlach and others, in 1866 to 1869, demonstrated the virulence on the lower animals of the milk of infected cows, and many accidental infections have shown the same for man. (See relation of the bacillus of man to that of animals). This conceded, the question arose as to the virulence of milk drawn from the sound udders of tuberculous cows. Many experiments of Nocard, Galtier, McFadyean and others seemed to decide against such infection. Others have had a different experience, and especially when the test was made by inoculation. Ernst found tubercle in 30 per cent. of the cows he examined, though no affection of the udder could be made out. Theobald Smith, Hirschberger, Bang and others found tubercle bacilli in milk from sound udders. Pearson, injecting the milk from sound udders intraperitoneally into Guinea pigs had ten in sixty-three affected. Rabinowitsch and Kemper found tubercle bacilli in ten out of fifteen cows with sound udders. While it must be allowed that often a very small proportion of tuberculous cows with sound udders pass the bacilli in the milk yet a sufficient number of exceptions are found to deter one from endorsing such milk as safe. Much more is this conclusion justified by the consideration that commencing mammary tuberculosis is in many cases unrecognizable by ordinary examination intravitam or post mortem. Again when the bacilli are circulating in the blood (generalized tuberculosis) they can escape from such a vascular tissue as the mamma without the formation of a local lesion, as they can pass through the intestinal walls or lungs and colonize the adjacent lymph glands. Nocard’s injections of the bacilli into the veins seem to show that they disappear from the blood in 4 to 6 days, but with a generalization of the infection from within, the presumption is against a single isolated entrance of bacilli, and in favor of a continuous introduction. In such generalization therefore the bacilli circulate in all vascular tissues, and are liable to escape with any normal secretion, but especially with the milk or urine on account of the great vascularity of the glands.

When the udder is itself tuberculous the case is incomparably worse. The milk can scarcely fail to be infecting, and the bacilli, grown in these highly vascular tissues, apart from the air, are usually of a very virulent type. Of these Martin writes in the report of the Royal Commission (England): “The milk of cows with tuberculosis of the udder possesses a virulence which can only be described as extraordinary. All animals inoculated showed tuberculosis in its most rapid form.” Woodhead is equally positive in this position. Galtier says “we should absolutely avoid the consumption of milk from cows in which the udder is tuberculous, and boil before using, the milk of all cows affected with, or suspected of tuberculosis in any form.” Finally we should never consume without boiling, milk of which we do not certainly know the origin, and especially in cities, we ought not to omit this precaution in the case of milk furnished by milkmen.” Rabinowitsch and Kemper add: “Milk from cows that react to tuberculin must be suspected of being tuberculous in every case.”

It may well be allowed that the mixed milk from a large dairy, containing but one or two tuberculous cows, is much less infecting than that of the tubercular cow herself, and that skim milk that has been passed through the separator has been robbed of many bacilli which have been precipitated in the albuminoid material that collects on the inner side of the bowl. But these mean dilution not purification: they reduce the danger but do not altogether remove it, and sanitary police should aim at sterilization in every case where available.