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This might even result in some registration of Tuberculosis being
adopted, though it is very difficult to see at present how this could be
effectually managed.
Considerable service could be done by the offer of the Sanitary
Authority to undertake, free of cost, the disinfection of any room,
bedding, etc., where a fatal case has occurred.
II. The second cause, that of tuberculous meat, can be attacked
by giving the Sanitary Authority more power over the inspection of
meat. A duly qualified Inspector should be appointed, and a Public
Slaughter-House should be forthwith established.
III. The third cause is the one to which I wish to draw special
attention. To milk obtained from tuberculous cows is undoubtedly
due the prevalence of tubercular disease in childhood, and the danger
of allowing such milk to be sold in such a District as ours, should
urge us to contemplate some more stringent measures than exist at
present in the inspection of dairies and cowsheds.
By your recent Bye-Laws, much has been done to obtain considerable
control over the supply of milk, especially when infectious disease
is epidemic, but, unfortuntely, Tuberculosis is not counted as an infectious
disease, otherwise more stringent precautions would be taken.
All dairies and cowsheds should be periodically and systematically
visited by a Veterinary Surgeon acting in conjunction with the Sanitary
Authority, and he should be empowered to take samples of milk, and
examine the cows with the tuberculin test, free of charge.
Such measures as these would, no doubt, be eventually welcomed
bv dairymen, as helping them to keep their dairies in the most hygienic
condition possible, and as guaranteeing the purity of their milk.
An alternative suggestion is to supply tuberculin to any owner
who will undertake to isolate reacting animals from healthy ones, thus
guarding against its formal use as an advertisement, with the neglect
of any subsequent precaution necessary to give it any practical value.
Of course, all infection from tuberculous milk may be destroyed
by boiling, or only sterilized milk could be used; but I think it would
be more satisfactory to know that the milk was guaranteed tuberculefree,
and this could only be done by ascertaining that the cows are
free from disease.