The Portland daily press., 1897-06-10

| originating IN thrilling cause, or origi-
mating in a mistake and this is nc
doubt the sense in which our farmer
uses it. The cause in this case is the ex.
istence of tuberculosis among COWS and
the possibility of the disease being COM
municated to human beings through the
use of their milk for food. Is this a
trifling cause or is it mistake. for it
must be one or the other to justify the
use of the word "scare." tuberculosis
is not certainly trivial disease. On the
contrary it is the most fatal one that
aff1icts the human family in this part of
the earth. Far more deaths occur from
it in it's vario forms than
from any other cause. We do not think
our farmer correspondent will take issue
with this statement. Does this disease
exist in cattle and is it communicable
through their milk to the human being
Post mortem examinations have so clear
ly demonstrated the first proposition that
no man of intelligence and ordinary in
formation can deny it. Is it commmuni-
cable to human beings through the agen-
cy of milk? Every physician, every vete-
rinarian, every expert who has ever
studied the matter believes that it is, and
there are numerous cases on record to
confirm their belief. These things being
SO is it proper to characterize the fear
born of these facts as are''-that is
to say, a sudden fright originating in a
trihing cause or mistake? On the con-
ssrary is not the fear of the transmission
of the disease from animals to man
through the agency of milk well
grounded fear. and of so much moment
that it calls for the most stringent pre-
cautions to prevent it's being realized
We think our farmer friend when he
cody reflects will come to the conclusion
that his characterization of well
wasting and incurable disease to the hu-
man subject through the agency of milk
as q ''scare'' was not happy one. We
know there are men, some of them farm
ers and some of them not, who
take the ground that all sani-
tary science is humbug, holding in effect
that disease is visitation of divine wrath
against which it is useless to fight but
our correspondent is. we are quite sure,
altogether too intelligent man to enter
tain any such view as that.
The danger of the transmission of tu-
berculosis from the COW to the human
being through her milk being admitted
for it has been SO thoroughly established
, by experiment. and scientific research
that no intelligent man can deny 1.-THE
question arises what shall human beings
do about it? Our correspondent says he
and the rest of the farmers are willing to
listen to anything that is common
in the community the purity of which is
suspected is it not common sense to
seek to determine by the best test which
can be applied whether or not that sus-
picion is well founded? When the farmer
is the purchaser instead of the seller is
not that the common sense that he ap
plies? He has been suspecting that a
good deal of the feed stuff that was sold
him from time to time was adulterated.
What did he do about it? He got law
passed providing that all such feed stuff
should be subjected to chemical analysis
and pronounced pure before the dealer
should have the right to sell it, and he
provided in this law too that the dealer
should pay for it. The selling of cows
food adulterated with matter not particu-
larry harmful to the cow is a very tri-
vial matter compared with the selling of
milk to human beings infected with the
germs of a fatal disease, yet he thought
it so much Importance as to require law
compelling test to prove the purity of
the cows food. And the test that he pro-
vided should be set up was chemical
analysis by scientific men. The dealer
said it would cost him many dollars and
a good deal of vexation to submit all his
feed stuff to this analysis, but the farmer
replied that that made no difference. The
farmer said he had right to demand
that the dealer should prove that his feed
stuff was pure. Now the consumer of the
farmers milk comes forward through
his representative, the Board of Health,
and says he has right to demand that
the source of his milk supply shall be
proved to be free from the germs of a
deadly disease by the most effective
indeed the only effective-test there is and
the farmer protests that this is unfair.
What was common sense when the boot
was on the other leg, when the farmer was
the buyer instead of the seller, has now
become "prejudiced and one-sided." We
do not think the farmers are acting
fairly in this matter. They are
not living up to the golden rule
of doing unto others as they would have
others do unto them--indeed as they have
compelled others to do unto them. They
are refusing protection to others which
they demand for themselves.