The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-11-06
Mr.. Ratliff on the Tuberculin Test

applied 70 GARY neTOS as pOteCIloi dSciil0' W
berculosis. His arguments are curious COM
pound of special pleading, transformation and So
phstry.
He speaks of advocates of the test as the
orists and agitators."
At their last national convention the beet
packers voted out 100000 of hard cash, part of
which is to be used in persuadng stock ra1sers
to use the tuberculin test. The city of Chicago
has passed an ordinance making it compulsory.
Pennsylvania has state law to the same effect.
Denmark has made the test compulsory through
out the land The state veterinarian department
of Indiana and the federal department of animal
industry have both declared its necessity in no
uncertain terms Are these THEORISTS" and "agi-
tators?"
Next he declares it will raise the price of
milk
The tubercun test will lower the price of
milk Since by its use it stamped out tuberculo-
SIS Denmark has been able to compete with Eng
lish dairymen on the London markets. Their
milk supply and butter fat were both increased.
Does insurance inspection increase the rate of
fire insurance? Does building inspection raise
rents? Does vaccination swell doctor bills? Ev-
erybody knows that ounce of prevention is
better than pound of cure; and cheaper
He says man is not susceptible to zine tu-
berculosis, or at least that such hs - Aot been
proved. If that hasn't been proved nothing ever
will be. Every sanitarian of standing in the
country knows that bovine tuberculosis affects
man. Statistics have already been compiled to
show the actual percentage of cases resulting
from tuberculous cattle.
Next he asks the unreflecting question, If
there is so much danger now why didn't our fore
fathers perish from it before the discovery Of
tubercun?
Mr. Ratliff should know that tuberculosis is
almost entirely confined to dairy herds. Where
two or three COWS are kept in a large meadow
and not housed up together there is little
danger, but where twenty-five to fifty hun
dred head are damned into dairy barn and eat
and drink out of the trough and breathe
the air and stand shoulder to shoulder, one
tubercuous cow may in time infect an entire
herd. Investigations have shown over and over
again that in the same regions where dairy
herds are badly infected farmers stock running
loose and seldom together almost free of the
maady. The reason forefathers didn't per-
ish from dairy disease simply because
they didn't have diaries. Besides, they did per-
ish and in numbers how large nobody knows.
The notion that people were healthier in 'the
good old days" is good old falacy and contains
not grain of truth.
Mr.. Ratliff argues that the test is not "con-
elusive"
Government experts have called it ''the most
perfect diagnostic agent known to man." AT
ter twenty-three years of use it has been found
81 per cent effective.
He also advances the astonishing contention
that there is danger from using the milk from
cow under the test This is absolutely ground
less. To healthy cow it is as harmless as air
Nd in cd hos +Lo
milk than if the veterinarian used water in the
injection.
He complains that the test requires dairy
mans time. The dairyman does not make the
test; why should it require his time for some
thing he does not do?
He points out that meat is eaten from tuber-
culous cattle.
Sometimes it is. If an infected cow is killed
under federal regulations and has localized in
lection her meat is as healthful as any other. Ma
ture has tied the germs up in sack where they
can't harm the tissues. And when they are not
in the tissues they can't get into a human stom-
ach. In the Richmond butcher shops at this mo-
ment there are doubtless more than one tuber-
culous carcass hung up for sale.
In conclusion, Mr.. RatEff says the consumer
pays" Of course, he does. If the consumers
baby is stricken with meningitis or intestinal
tuberculosis he pays. If his body carries
about localized infection of bovine origin he is
paying every day by devtaized constitution
And in paying eight cents quart for milk the
consumer is now paying for the lack of the tl1-
berculin test. Infected cattle cannot produce
the quantities that healthy stock can. The less
the quantity from his herds the higher is the
dairyman's price for his milk. If the consumer
is wise and wants to save his money he will in
sist that no milk be sold in Richmond except