The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-06-10


as the reult of feeding upon the unsterll-
lied milk of tuberculous cows
| While inspecting herd OF cattle q rev
wears ago in Eastern Maine, I had just
given an unguarded diagnosis OF upper
culosis in fine looking Jersey COW, When
a woman's sharp voice rang ONT peh1n ny
me; "For Gods sake Doctor don't tell
me that baby has been fed on thai COW $
milk and although the story was told
| the mother at the time, that the COW
proved sound, a broken hearted mother
now knows that 1 told her the truth
A Scotch family all of sturdy health,
had herd of cows which developed
tuberculosis. Two daugntersi pe;ms
young We're brought up on the milk;
| Their two older brothers. being more fond
of whiskey than of milk, are still living,
healthy and hearty, while the two sisters
are lying in their graves, victims OF tuber.
culosis I also have in mind the case OF
| two young men whose history was free
| from phthisis, raised upon a farm in
Maine, where herd of cows proved tuber-
culous; the younger remaining upon the
| farm and living largely upon milk; the
older coming to Portland and drinking
the more popular beverage of this seaport
| town. The younger man long since died
of phthisis while the older brother is still
with us, although just at present in the
''Keeley."
| A child four years old, great grandson
of Henry Ward Beecher, recently died in
! New York of tubercular meningitis
There were no hereditary tendencies to
the disease known. The certainty that
he had the disease, and the inability to
account for it from human agencies, led
the physicians to suspect the milk of two
Alderney cows on which the child had
been mainly fed. The tuberculin tests
and the postmortems showed that both
ami mails were tuberculous.
DR.. Stalker, of the Ohio Board of
Health, writes."A few days since, made
post mortem of COW, the milk of
which had been used to nourish an in
FAINT. The child died, and the autopsy re-
vealed in the clearest possible manner
extensive tuberculosis. I know of a
large herd of COWS in Maine, several of
which proved tuberculous, where the
owner kept large watch dog constantly
in the barn and fed him with all the milk
he wanted. That dog developed case of
mesenteric tuberculosis, and the post
mortem showed almost every abdominal
organ affected. Swine, are also very free
ly infected by the ingestion of milk, and
our State Commission have several times
discovered hogs that had been fed the
| skim milk of tubecrulous herds or cattle,
badly diseased. A Vermont herd revealed
seventy eight out of ninety one animals
diseased by tuberculin tests and many of
the swine fed on the skim milk from the
dairy were found as tuberculous as the
cows. On another Vermont farm where
the disease was located, over sixty of the
cows, over one hundred hogs, all the
chickens, the dogs and the family cat
were exterminated and all proved to be
diseased upon autopsy.
Edmund A. Parkes, the founder of
| modern hygiene, man whose magnif-
cent work has startled us by it's simplicity
and yet completeness, and who has con-
tributed more to the saving of life than
words can express, defines hygiene as the
art of preserving health:
=" 1t aims at rendering growth more per-
| feet, decay less rapid, life more vigorous,
death more remote;' and he tells us that
if we had a perfect knowledge of the laws
of life, and could practically apply thi s
knowledge in a perfect system Of hygienic
| rules, disease would be impossible. In
dealing with this subject, we have to
| consider with regard to animals, the air
| they breathe, the water they drink, the
| labor they undergo, and the prevention
and graduation of epozootic diseases. Our
greatest hygienic triumphs have been
| won where our advice has been assisted
by law. Up to a certain point a man is
! at liberty to do what he likes with his own
property the law except in the case of
certain diseases cannot interfere, and we
possess no power Of enforcing hygiene !;
but the public have a right to demand
| that when they purchase what purports
to be wholesome milk, it shall not have
mixed with it the germs Of deadly dis
ease. The barns which many of our herds
inhabit, damp and dark with no proper
drainage or ventilation, are disgrace to
civilized life, and If we could have camp
meetings in Maine to preach the gospel
of cleanliness, s.instead of faith cures and
hypnotism, the public health would be
much better protected. The story of
Moses leading the children of Israel out of
Egypt, and solving the wonderful problem
of restoring the national health of a dis
eased and degraded people, by compelling
them to live for forty years in conformity
to the highest sanitary laws, has never
yet reached some of the back towns of
Maine. Governor Cleaves did not need
the lantern Of Diogenes to find me two
| honest and earnest men as associate COM
missioners but that our work has in
many instances been ignorantly opposed
and interfered with, is not to be won.
dered. The property rights of the owner,
the health OF the consumer, the liability
of the State for indemnity have all to be
considered but I regard it to be the first
duty Of all breeders and 1nilkmen to Grad
icate tuberculosis from their herds, to
save themselves and their own reputation,
as well as their customers and the public
at large.
1t has often been asserted and as often
proved that we have far less tuberculosis
in Maine than any other New England
State, as reflected from our annual re-
ports, but that we have far more than can
be controlled by any appropriation vet
made to carry on the work is very appar-
emit. No other New England State has
less than double the appropriation of
Maine, while Massachusetts has s30O,O COO
and paid out during 1896 over s173, 900 for
519S head of cattle condemned for tuber-
culosis. The present appropriation OF
Maine, would not last in Massachusetts,
the present week, and we have thorough
bred herds of cattle in this State, that
would require the whole of the present
amount to pay for, if they should all
prove diseased. So insidious, widespread
and fatal disease as this, should certain
ly command the earnest and thoughtful
attention of the present Legislature, to
enable us to grapp1e with and eradicate it
from all infected herds. The discoveries
of such eminent Investigators as Pasteur
and Koch have evolved from obscurity
the essential cause of the disease, and
has placed in our hands the means to
diagnose the malady in all it's stages of
Development and it's complete disposal