BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 August 1938, Page 3

BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS

TRANSMISSION TO CALVES. INCIDENCE IN GERMANY. It is asserted that experiments conducted by the Hannah Institute in. England proved that over 60 per cent of calves fed on milk contracted bovine tuberculosis. If that is the case in Great Britain, where an intensive campaign has been aimed at the extermination from dairy herds of tubercular cows, how much higher must be the incidence of disease transference to calves and pigs in this country, where tubercular cows are not sought out by a complete test of all members of he herd, and where the skim milk and whey is bulked before being fed to the young stock. One dairy cow in the herd having tuberculosis in the udder will infect the whole skim-milk output on the farm. Under these conditions every pig and calf is subjected to a grave risk of contracting the disease. It is stated that the most widelyspread disease among cattle in Germany is tuberculosis, the disease being estimated to affect 30 per cent of all cattle, and causing an annual estimated loss of 1,500,000,000 marks. New laws are now being enforced which aim at the prevention and suppression of animal' diseases, and also to increase the resistance of stock to disease through breeding for sounder constitution.