was endangered or a mistake made by setting these horses at liberty; but their future will be watched with much interest.

NEAT STOCK.

We have been frequently notified by boards of health and private individuals of cases of supposed contagious disease among cattle, particularly of contagious pleuro-pneumonia. But examination proved that the trouble was ordinary pneumonia, or that complicated with some form of anthrax. There has been no contagion among this stock, unless it has been in the form of pulmonary tuberculosis. From year to year this disease is attracting more and more attention. Investigations and experiments are being made in relation to its pathology, its character as a contagion, the laws which control or modify its dissemination and periods of development. The disease is not new, but was known and described centuries before the Christian era. It has prevailed in all the temperate and semi-tropical regions of the world in the human species, and all domestic animals except, perhaps, the horse. Its lesions are nearly identical in all, and under certain circumstances it may possibly be communicated from species to species. Whatever diversity of opinion may exist as to its virility as a contagion, all agree that it is hereditary. Sanitary statistics in Massachusetts show that sixteen per cent. of deaths among humans are caused by it, but this cannot be taken as the ratio of its prevalence among bovines. There is an accumulation of facts which makes it quite certain that the milk and meat of tuberculous cattle is not healthy food unless it is heated to 150 degrees. The commissioners have not believed that the provisions of our law are sufficient to enable them by its force to curtail or eradicate this disease, but they do believe that much would be accomplished in this direction if stock owners would cease to breed from suspected cows, and as fast as possible send them and their present progeny to slaughter. During the year Dr. Winchester, the veterinarian of the Board, in connection with several other members of the profession, has made a somewhat extended examination of herds of cattle in different parts of the State in relation to the prevalence of this disease, the account of which will be appended to this report.

HOG CHOLERA.

This disease is more or less prevalent in the State. No new facts have been found which lead us to change the opinion heretofore expressed in relation to the manner in which it is brought here. Our observations for several years have proved that with us it rarely if ever spreads from herd to herd, but is fed to them in the refuse of pork brought from the West and which contains its germ. This fact has been so often stated, and is so well known, that it seemed to us that all swine owners who feed it should do so at their own risk and expense, and guard the public from danger by keeping their herds strictly confined on their own premises. Accordingly, on the 24th of February regulations were issued to the boards of health of the cities and towns, directing them in all cases of disease to require strict isolation of the entire herd infected, at the expense of the owner, but in no case to appraise or slaughter the animals; also, to notify the commissioners if the contagion assumed a malignant or any peculiar type, that such measures might be adopted as the public safety required. Under this system there has been no increase of the malady, and whatever burden it may have caused, it has been borne, not by the State treasury, but by those who could see profit in swine feeding notwithstanding its risks. None of the other contagious diseases which have caused us so much trouble and loss in some former years have visited us, and though our competition with Western stock products has been sharp, ours have been reasonably prosperous.

BOSTON, Jan. 7, 1889.

LEVI STOCKBRIDGE,

A. W. CHEEVER,

J. F. WINCHESTER, V. S.,
Cattle Commissioners.

APPENDIX.

TUBERCULOSIS.

Tuberculosis undoubtedly prevails among the domesticated animals over the entire globe, and has been well defined as a universal panzootic.

Its frequency depends upon various external influences, as well as constitutional predispositions of different species and breeds. The centres of this malady are met with in the great centres of human population, and in these centres a large per cent. of tuberculosis is found in mankind.

This disease is of the greatest importance, since it has been induced experimentally in animals of different species, as carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores, by inoculation and feeding for certain periods tuberculous material from the lungs and glands of diseased subjects, as well as their milk.

Since man derives a great deal, and in some instances his entire sustenance, from the flesh and milk of animals around him, we can scarcely doubt that an intimate casual correlation exists between him and them with regard to the disease.

Tuberculosis has been demonstrated to be due to the bacilli of tuberculosis by Koch, and that the germ will reproduce itself innumerable times and retain its virulence. It will not multiply outside of the animal body except by artificial means, but it has been known to retain its activity in decaying sputum for forty-three days, and in air-dried sputum for 186 days. Death has taken place from the inoculation of the bacilli into susceptible animals as soon as ten days when introduced directly into the circulation, in five or six weeks when subcutaneously inoculated, and in from three to four months when associated with infectious animals. These

facts have been well demonstrated by Koch in his numerous experiments. Animals that are not susceptible to this disease will succumb to the direct inoculation of large numbers of the bacilli. The period of incubation is an uncertain one, as will be seen from the results of the experiments made by Koch, varying as regards the amount of virus entering the system, and the susceptibility of the animal.

By artificial means this bacilli has been cultivated for eighteen months, through twenty-six successive breedings, and then found, by inoculation, to produce the morbid phenomena of tuberculosis, the same as when taken from an infected animal. This organism may gain its entrance into the system by circulation, from the mother, respiratory or digestive tracts, or through wounds on any part of the body. It has been well said that contagious diseases in general, and tuberculosis in particular, are very infrequent in habitations to which strange cattle are not admitted, and where vacancies are filled up by the home stock.

The development of the disease depends upon the surroundings, condition of the animal, the organ or tissue involved, and the amount of virus taken into the system. The first evidence of infection is an elevation of temperature, which often passes away in a few days unnoticed.

The general condition of the animal will depend on the progress that the disease has made so as to interfere with the functions of the body. This will vary from the appearance of perfect health to emaciation, with a rough, stary coat, and hide-bound. Among other symptoms, there is an enlargement of the external lymphatic glands of throat, neck and flank, and usually associated with disease in some of the internal organs. Again, there is lameness without any evidence of external cause, swelling of the joints, contraction of muscles of the neck, and abscesses along the bones.

Cases often present themselves with a cough, more or less discharge from nostrils, hurried and labored respiration, or even difficult and audible respiration with a grunt. When the digestive organs are the seat of the disease, capricious appetite, bloating, tenderness on pressure, fæces soft or constipated, and in last stages thin and fœtid. The first

evidence where the digestive organs are involved, the animal does not hold its own in flesh and general condition.

The udder is not infrequently a seat of the trouble, which shows itself in the form of small nodules or circumscribed mammiets, which do not yield readily to the treatment for garget, for which they are often mistaken. The nervous system is not exempt from its ravages, as seen in cases of paralysis or excitement, when the spinal cord or brain is affected. The generative organs are not infrequently involved, seen in nymphomania or continual bulling.

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That the lesions of tuberculosis are not confined to any special tissue or organ, can be seen by the various symptoms it presents, as well as the different ways the virus may enter the system.

Of 200 cases that were inspected by Goring of Bavaria, in 88 cases the lesions were confined to lung and serous membranes; in 67 cases the lesions were confined to lungs only; in 33 cases the lesions were confined to serous membranes only, and in 12 cases where the disease was in other organs.

Again, in 1,596 cases of tuberculosis, carefully investigated in the Grand Duchy of Baden, 21 per cent. with lung lesions only; 28 per cent. with peritoneal and pleural lesions only; 39 per cent. with lung and pleura; 9 per cent. with general tuberculosis; 3 per cent. with genital organs.

It is a well-established fact that heredity has an influence in its propagation, and it may be transmitted by the male as well as by the female. Notwithstanding the above fact, animals may be born from tuberculous parents without any predisposition to the disease, and multiply the same as if from perfectly healthy ancestors; still, the predisposition may be inherited from tuberculous parents.

That it is an infectious disease has been well established. As long ago as 1780, Dr. Wichmann, court physician at Hanover, stated that phthisis was transmitted when exposure to infection had been frequent or long continued. The experiments of Villemin in 1864 caused him to come to the conclusion that tuberculosis was an infectious and specific malady, capable of being transmitted from one animal to another. From clinical observations tubercular phthisis is a contagious