TUBERCULOSIS IN MILK.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 169, 10 April 1908, Page 2

TUBERCULOSIS IN MILK.

A SAFEGUARD. As The Dominion rccentlv pointed out, proper certificates ■ that the cows, supplying tile milk of the cities have successfully passed .1 tuberculin tost, would go a long way toward ensuring that tho milk is.ffec from tho germs of consumption. Tho journal Health " .(England) puts forward a similar suggestion. It says: — " Suddon or drastic attempts at interfcrenco with the dairy trado would bo..resented and lend'to a great deal of difficulty. Already farmers a.ll over England have united mid joined associations to oppose any legislative interference with what they consider their just rights. Farmers are, however, alive to the value of an extra penny a gallon for their milk, and if tho public aro willing to pay a fair price for a good article they caii undoubtedly : have it. If the public" say they v/ish their milk from cows which are kopt in we!l-vo:itilatcd shed?, if'they desire to have mill: from cows thai, are free from tuberculosis, thsy can havo it, but at present they will havo to pay a trifle'more for such milk;-it costs more to product), and it is worth moro money. " It has been established that cows which are injected under certain - definite conditions with tuberculin will, , if tuberculous, havo a deoidod rise in their temperature during the succeeding twenty-four hours, white cows which are .-.healthy aro not in any- way affcctcd. By this, means of diagnosis a herd of cows may be freed from this terrible scourge, and some public institutions .and private people, are now arranging to havo :their; milk only 'from cows which have bfien so tested, and are proved healthy. "A very/great impetus 'would bo given to tho freeing'of our herds from tuberculosis if incdical men would use. their influence to see that their milk, and the milk of institutions, came from herds from which the tuberculous, cqws had. been eliminated, and • a guarantee was given, that all the fresh cows, that entered; tho herd were previously tested with tuberculin and certified free from, tho disease. , Tho. cows should bo under competent veterinary, inspection at- regular, integrals, an iu'spection which should, if proporly conducted, be serviceable to tho dairy farmer as well_as to tho public. "As N ono 'might .expect, as ;tliia' subject has become' siscE an acute .and public,'jtres-,. tion, various moans aro devised of obtaining ' .oartificates .as to tho purity of tho' milk:, Perhaps the, most, specious and. plausible of theso is the certiiicato of a microscopic examination, of tlio milk. This is now being foisted on tho public by one or-more cf; the largo dairy companies, arid thero is a medical association whicn sends round circulars offering ,to examine your milk microscopically and report as to tho presenco of tubercle bacilli. As,has been frequently pointed out, the number of cows giving tuberculous milk is not more than one in every two hundred milking cows, and as tho tubercle bacilli- are difficult to detect in tho milk of pno .cow r except in advanced cases, it is_ obvious that ■when tho niilk of such a cow is mixed with two 1 , hundred more' cows' milk,, that even after separating the milk, you may examine hundreds of. slides without .finding any positive evidence of tuberculosis, and yet tho milk would 'bo dangerous.' 1 .