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Such animals may be in apparent good health at the time of purchase, and be affected with generalized or open tuberculosis. A source of infection is by unknowingly buying cows that have reacted to the tuberculin test. The indiscriminate use and sale of tuberculin are largely responsible for the large number of reacting animals that have been placed on the open market.
The negative results of tuberculin tests may assist in the differentiation from tuberculous disease, but the more certain means of excising one of the suspected glands and submitting it to microscopical examination should be had recourse to. The sections show proliferation of endothelial cells, the formation of numerous giant cells quite unlike those of tuberculosis and a progressive fibrosis.
Tuberculin did, indeed, cure certain minor forms of tuberculous disease, such as the skin affection known as lupus, but it soon became evident that it was almost impotent in the treatment of pulmonary consumption.
In particular, the researches on the cholera germ, and those even more widely heralded researches that led to the discovery of the bacillus of tuberculosis, and the development of the remedy tuberculin, of which so much was at first expected, were made by Professor Koch in the laboratories of the antiquated building which was then and is still the seat of the Institute of Hygiene.
When he had worn himself out with some one or other of the many causes he pursued in South London, working with a sombre passion which had in it very little of the mystical joy or hope which sustain others in similar efforts; when he had scarcely a coat to his back, or a shoe to his feet; when his doctor began to talk of tuberculin tests and the high Alps; then he would wire to Duddon, and come and vegetate under Victoria's wing, for just as many weeks as were necessary to send him back to London restored to a certain physical standard.
Should the raw surface left be likely to result in an unsightly scar or in cicatricial contraction, skin-grafting should be employed. For extensive ulcers on the limbs, the chest wall, or on other covered parts, or when operative treatment is contra-indicated, the use of tuberculin and exposure to the Röntgen rays have proved beneficial.
I need scarcely tell you that I gave myself copious injections of tuberculin and spat a considerable number of bacilli. But enough remained behind to provide me with a speedy exitus letalis. Now for the essential. I must settle my bequests. I find I owe you three thousand marks. You made it possible for me to complete my medical studies. To be sure, they have failed me miserably.
It is now a common requirement among intelligent breeders of pedigreed cattle to demand, as a formal condition of sale, their submission to the tuberculin test, or the certificate of a competent veterinarian that the animal has been so tested without reacting.
The most practical method of disposing of dairy cows that react to the tuberculin test is to slaughter them. Unless a large percentage of the herd is tubercular, it is not advisable to practise segregation and quarantine. This may be advisable if the reactor is a valuable breeding animal, unless visible symptoms are shown. The milk from reacting cows may be used if it is boiled or sterilized.
But let the results speak. A thorough system of quarantine was enforced, beginning with one of the Vienna gardens, and finally reaching one of its most brilliant and successful exemplifications in our own New York Zoölogical Gardens in the Bronx. All animals purchased or donated were tested with tuberculin, and those that reacted were either painlessly destroyed or disposed of.
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