have the original package question to deal with, the interstate commerce question, etc. So far as different states are concerned but little can be accomplished until uniform laws are passed to control the production and shipment of milk.

DR. FELIX FORMENTO, New Orleans, La. I think a little too much stress has been laid upon the necessity of having public sentiment back of a law. I think the State Boards of Health should formulate laws which will educate the public. We ought not to wait until the public is educated, but we should educate it. In my own city and State a number of ordinances and laws have been passed, which were received with much opposition; but soon after the enforcement of the laws these very persons who first opposed it acquiesced and obeyed. We have a law for the inspection of all the milk introduced in the city of New Orleans, whether it comes from the immediate neighborhood or from a distance. It must come up to a certain standard or it is rejected.

The public should be led to follow sanitary guidance or sanitary law, but we should not wait to be led by public opinion.

DR. FELIX FORMENTO, New Orleans, La. : Mr. President, I offer the following resolution:

Resolved, That it is the sense of this Conference that tuberculous patients should be isolated from other inmates in our hospitals, asylums, prisons and penitentiaries.

Upon motion, properly seconded, resolution was adopted. PRESIDENT C. A. RUGGLES, California: Dr. Henry B. Baker, of Michigan, desires an opportunity to invite the Conference to meet at Detroit next July. I do not wish to interfere with the action of the Executive Committee, which has the power to appoint a time and place of meeting, but I simply call your attention to Dr. Baker's invitation.

"WHAT ATTITUDE ARE STATE BOARDS OF HEALTH PREPARED TO TAKE REGARDING THE NEW LAW FOR GENERAL INSPECTION OF DAIRY CATTLE, AND WHAT ARE THE DETAILS OF ANY PRACTICAL SCHEME FOR INSPECTING?"

(a) "Herds Supplying Public Milk?
(b) "Dairy Produce?"

(c) "For Dealing with Animals which React to the Tuberculin Test?"

Discussion opened by Benjamin Lee, M. D., of Pennsyl

vania.

The selection of the representative of Pennsylvania as the member to open the discussion on this very important topic was, from one point of view at least, an unfortunate one. The Legislature of that State has placed the entire subject of the sanitary supervision of cattle and dairy produce in the hands of the Department of Agriculture.

A sub-department entitled "The Sanitary Live Stock Board," has been created, the chief of which is the State Veterinarian. While intimate relations exist between that body and the State Board of Health, and they work in harmony at all points where the diseases of domestic animals directly or indirectly affect the health of human beings, yet the knowledge that another official bureau is devoting itself entirely to the suppression of disease in the bovine race, naturally has the effect to lead the Board of Health to throw the responsibility of the supervision of dairies and dairy cattle upon those to whom this duty was specifically assigned, and to devote its energies to other subjects more particularly its own. Of course no amount

of legislation can entirely relieve it of a sense of duty in this regard, but what it does is in the shape of a suggestion rather than of executive action.

Of the necessity for official inspection by state authority of all dairies and all milch-cows, whether supplying public milk or supplying simply their owners, I, for one, am thoroughly convinced.

The latter class, of course, do not present the same pressing need for governmental supervision that the former do, but as soon as we admit the principle that bovine Tuberculosis is contagious from animal to animal, and that its germ is essentially the same as that of Tuberculosis in the human family, we must accept the necessity for leaving no

possible focus of this disease without investigation and supervision.

As regards public dairies, there is room for doubt whether the communities which receive the supply should not be left to protect themselves, and whether the most efficient work of the State Board does not consist in stimulating the local Boards to a full sense of their duties in this particular, and furnishing them concise and well digested information as to their powers and the best methods of exercising them, as well as the real character of the dangers resulting from their neglect.

Even without the specific legislation, I believe the general police powers of a municipality extend to the protection of the health of its poople, by the inspection of the sources of its milk supply. The health officer of one of our small cities in Pennsylvania has taken the cow by the horns and instituted a system of personal inspection of every dairy from which milk is brought to that place. He makes the inspection a prerequisite to the right to sell milk to the citizens. After each inspection he publishes a report in the daily papers in detail and rates the dairies, in accordance with the care bestowed by the owners, both on the animals and on their habitations. While this was at first objected to by the farmers, they now all acquiesce in it, and the improvement in the condition of the stables and yards, and appearance of the animals, has been very marked. In my mind, nothing will take the place of inspection of the dairies. I feel it to be at least of equal importance with the employment of the tuberculin test.

The practical details for such inspections have been carefully considered and fairly well formulated by the State Live Stock Sanitary Commission of Pennsylvania, already referred to.

They comprise first, an inspection of the premises, made by a veterinary surgeon appointed for the purpose. This inspection has reference to the following particulars:

(EXHIBIT A.)

General plan of stable...

Dimensions..

Air space, cubic feet per animal..

Method of ventilating..

Method of lighting..

(Location and size of windows.)

Second. An inspection of each animal with the employment of the tuberculin test. This includes the following points:

The results of the tuberculin test are recorded on a separate sheet for each animal, and those for the entire herd on another sheet, a copy of which is herewith presented:

The State Veterinarian has authority to order any animal to be killed on the written certificate of the Veterinary Surgeon that he believes it to be tuberculous.

An agreement is entered into in writing between the owner of the animal or his agent and an agent or member of the board appraising the same, due consideration having been given to its actual value and condition at the time of the appraisement.

A careful autopsy is made of every animal slaughtered,