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tions and in the cases decided in favor of the Government fines imposed amounted to $2,000.

ERADICATION OF TUBERCULOSIS

Mr. SANDLIN. The next item is:

Eradicating tuberculosis: For investigating the diseases of tuberculosis and paratuberculosis of animals, and avian tuberculosis, for their control and eradication, for the tuberculin testing of animals, and for researches concerning the causes of the diseases, their modes of spread, and methods of treatment and prevention, including demonstrations, the formation of organizations, and such other means as may be necessary, either independently or in cooperation with farmers, associations, or State, Territory, or county authorities, $4,042,179, of which $1,042,179 shall be set aside for administrative and operating expenses and $3,000.000 for the payment of indemnities: Provided, That in carrying out the purpose of this appropriation, if in the opinion of the Secretary of Agriculture it shall be necessary to condemn and destroy tuberculous or paratuberculous cattle, if such animals have been destroyed, condemned, or die after condemnation, he may, in his discretion, and in accordance with such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, expend in the city of Washington or elsewhere such sums as he shall determine to be necessary, within the limitations above provided, for the payment of indemnities, for the reimbursement of owners of such animals, in cooperation with such States, Territories, counties, or municipalities, as shall by law or by suitable action in keeping with its authority in the matter, and by rules and regulations adopted and 'enforced-in pursuance thereof, provided inspection of tuberculous or paratuberculous cattle and for compensation to owners of cattle so condemned, but no part of the money hereby appropriated shall be used in compensating owners of such cattle except in cooperation with and supplementary to payments to be made by State, Territory, county, or municipality where condemnation of such cattle shall take place, nor shall any payment be made hereunder as compensation for or on account of any such animal if at the time of inspection or test, or at the time of condemnation thereof, it shall belong to or be upon the premises of any person, firm, or corporation to which it has been shipped, or delivered for the purpose of being slaughtered: Provided further, That out of the money hereby appropriated no payment as compensation for any cattle condemned for slaughter shall exceed one third of the difference between the appraised value of such cattle and the value of the salvage thereof; that no payment hereunder shall exceed the amount paid or to be paid by the State, Territory, county, and municipality where the animal shall be condemned; that in no case shall any payment hereunder be more than $25 for any grade animal or more than $50 for any purebred animal, and that no payment shall be made unless the owner has complied with all lawful quarantine regulations. Dr. MOHLER. The following statement is presented under this item:

Appropriation:

1932. 1933.

1934

Estimated obligations, 1934.

Budget estimate, 1935--

Decrease, Budget 1935, compared with estimated obligations, 1934__

The reduction of $1,903,181 in the estimate of $4,042,179 for 1935 appropriation of $5,945,360 for 1934 consists of:

Impoundment of 6% percent of 15 percent pay cut..
Curtailment in 1934 working funds.

$6,505, 800

6, 061, 777

5, 945, 360

4. 296, 464 4,042, 179

254, 285 below the

-$61. 415 -1, 587, 481

Further reduction in working funds for 1935 ($333 under the project for eradicating tuberculosis from herds of cattle and from circumscribed areas, and $300,000 for indemnities for animals slaughtered on account of tuberculosis)

5 percent salary restoration_.

Total

-$300, 333

+46, 048

-1, 903, 181

WORK DONE UNDER THIS APPROPRIATION

The object of this work is to assist in a campaign to control and eradicate tuberculosis among livestock under a uniform plan in cooperation with the States. This campaign was launched as a Federal-aid project after an extensive survey showed the disease was spreading. The States and livestock owners have looked to the Federal Government for leadership in this work since its inauguration and desire that this assistance be continued, as many failures occurred when independent efforts were employed. Approximately $14,000,000 was appropriated last year by various States to assist in this campaign. The appropriation has been divided to provide for operating expenses for supervision and indemnity for animals slaughtered.

Dr. MOHLER. The cooperating forces applied 13,073,894 tuberculin tests to cattle. which were contained in 1,110,306 herds. Of this number 255,096 or 2 percent reacted to the test and were condemned. This is a slight increase over the percentage for the previous year, which is explained by the fact that much more work was done in the more heavily infected sections of the eastern States and in California. There are now approximately 36,500,000 cattle under supervision for the eradication of tuberculosis in the United States. These cattle are located in approximately 4,000,000 herds. On July 1, 1933, there were 194,349 fully accredited herds, containing 3,172,575

cattle.

AREA WORK

A greater portion of the activities in connection with the eradication of tuberculosis from cattle was conducted under the area plan, which continues to prove to be efficient and practicable. On July 1, 1933, there were 1,626 counties in the modified accredited area, in addition to 74 towns in the State of Vermont. Since July 1 101 additional counties have been designated as modified accredited areas. There are now 13 States, namely, North Carolina, Maine, Michigan, Indiana. Wisconsin, Ohio, Idaho, North Dakota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Utah, Kentucky, and West Virginia, in which all the counties are in the modified accredited area. Periodic retesting is being conducted in these States in order to locate any remaining infection.

Mr. CANNON. Does that mean that tuberculosis has been completely eradicated in those States?

Dr. MOHLER. No; it means that eradication has been completed to less than five tenths of 1 percent.

Mr. CANNON. Is it practicable to make it 100 percent?

Dr. MOHLER. Oh, yes.

Mr. CANNON. You expect eventually to reach 100 percent?

3 The reduction of $300.333 in working funds for 1935 includes:

(a) A decrease of $333 for eradicating tuberculosis from herds of cattle and from circumscribed areas. This decrease will be met in part by a reduction in rent on account of moving into a Federal building ($108); and by a reduction of $225 in the amount used for they payment of salaries.

(b) A decrease of $300,000 for indemnities for animals slaughtered on account of tuberculosis--This decrease will be met by reducing the allotment of Federal indemnity funds to some of the States where the infection of tuberculosis has been greatly reduced.

Dr. MOHLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. You expect also to carry that out in the remaining States, do you?

Dr. MOHLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. In other words, eventually we are going to rid ourselves completely of tuberculosis?

Dr. MOHLER. That is the objective, and I believe it can be attained.

Mr. THURSTON. Can you tell me to what percentage eradication has progressed in my State of Iowa? Never mind if you do not have it there. I thought possibly you might have it.

Dr. MOHLER. I think there are about 72 counties that are accredited in Iowa, and I think that is much over half.

Mr. THURSTON. There are 99 counties.

Dr. MOHLER. I do not recall the exact figures, but I can put them in the record. (Of the 99 counties in Iowa, 80 counties have been accredited.)

TIME REQUIRED TO ERADICATE TUBERCULOSIS IN ANIMALS

Mr. CANNON. How long do you anticipate it will take to completely eradicate the disease in continental United States?

Dr. MOHLER. We figure that it will be done by 1938.
Mr. CANNON. That is encouraging.

Dr. MOHLER. Of course, that depends on being able to continue the speed which we have maintained during the last 3 years, but we recently have been getting our indemnity funds cut down considerably. Fortunately for the work but unfortunately for the owner. prices have been away down, so we are getting about the same results now with less money than we did before with more money. If the prices go up, as I hope they will in a short time, we will be handicapped. We cannot then make the speed that we are now making with present funds.

Mr. CANNON. There has been one good result, at least, from the depression; it has accelerated this work?

Dr. MOHLER. That is right; and the farmers are very glad to get a $20 bill for some of their cattle, under present conditions, and get the salvage in addition.

Mr. HART. Doctor, I have heard some farmers state that some of the cattle in the last stages of tuberculosis will not react.

Dr. MOHLER. That is very true.

Mr. HART. They say that some are picked out that seem to be perfectly sound, and then they will get some cow that will be passed and she is in the last stages of tuberculosis.

Dr. MOHLER. That is correct; but a man who knows the business can pick out most of these chronic cases on physical examination, just as when you see a fellow going along the street spitting and hawking, with his shoulders rounded, you know he has tuberculosis; or, if you were a physician, you would know it without any question. So a great many of these cases are picked out by their general appearance. Even then, if the tuberculin test misses that kind of a case, it means only a small fraction of 1 percent, a very minute percentage when we make a relative statement of the whole number of cattle (more than one million monthly) that are being tuberculin

tested. We have not been held back by those cases except occasionally. Sometimes it has been difficult to clean up a herd because they have had a "Typhoid Mary ", such as you speak about. She is rotten inside, but she is pretty fleshy, and she has no physical indications of tuberculosis. There are always some obstacles to all this kind of work. It does not always run smooth, and that is one of the difficulties which we have had to surmount.

Mr. HART. I have heard these farmers complaining about losing a lot of apparently good, sound, young cattle, and here is an old cow that, when she was killed, or when she died and was opened up, was found to be rotten with tuberculosis, and she was passed, and they think, of course, that the test is of no value. But I assume that that is just one of the minor troubles that you have.

Dr. MOHLER. It is. It is the same way in tick eradication. You know they said we could not eradicate ticks because rabbits had ticks and deer had ticks, which is very true; but we never had any trouble in California in getting rid of the ticks, the work having been completed about 16 or 17 years ago. Yet California, I presume, has more deer than any other State I have ever been in. It just seems that deer with the ticks on them did not act as spreaders of disease. The deer went back in the woods where the cattle did not go; and when the ticks became adult and dropped off, the eggs were not hatched in proximity to the cattle, and therefore the cattle did not get the infection.

CONTAGIOUS ABORTION

Mr. THURSTON. Doctor, one of the principal complaints about vaccination in the State of Iowa is that so many of the cows lose their calves. Is that to be attributed to the fault of the vaccine or the incapacity of the veterinarian?

Dr. MOHLER. You mean the tuberculin?

Mr. THURSTON. Yes. What is the reason for that? There is a great deal of complaint in our State.

Dr. MOHLER. Unfortunately, you have so much infectious abortion in your State that I do not know how anybody can say that the tuberculin test is responsible, when we know that you have got any quantity of the germs of Bangs' disease, and we know that they produce abortion.

Mr. THURSTON. Some of these counties, though, that are having this same trouble have been cleaned up for years.

Dr. MOHLER. The Bang's disease, you mean, or tuberculosis? Mr. THURSTON. Of course, I do not know what the disease is, but I know that they complain very sharply about losing calves because the cows have been vaccinated.

Mr. CANNON. It sounds very much like contagious abortion. When any herd begins to slink calves, in more than two or three instances, you had better look out. That is abnormal.

Dr. MOHLER. We do not find that tuberculin testing produces abortion. We have the Government herds here that have been free from tuberculosis for many years, and although they are subjected to the tuberculin test twice every year, we have never found that it produced abortions. There is an incidental connection; when you have a herd tested and the cow aborts, naturally you blame it on the tuberculin test.

Mr. THURSTON. Is there any way, Doctor, that a veterinarian can tell when he treats the cow whether she has Bangs' disease or not? Dr. MOHLER. The only evidence of abortion is the slinking of the calf, and before that time you cannot tell unless you take a sample of the blood and have it tested by laboratory methods.

Mr. THURSTON. So far as the ordinary owner of livestock is concerned, it would be just as essential to have that test made as it would be to give the tuberculin test, would it not?

Dr. MOHLER. Yes, sir. Just now abortion is causing three or four times more loss economically to the farmer than tuberculosis is. We are over the peak and going down fast with tuberculosis.

Mr. THURSTON. Does the average owner of livestock know about that?

Dr. MOHLER. We have issued several Government publications with 4 or 5 editions that have told them about it. Of course, you cannot make people read them, but they are available for the asking. I estimate that there is over $50,000,000 worth of loss per year due to abortion in the United States.

Mr. THURSTON. I doubt if the average farmer, in the State of Iowa at least, knows about that.

Dr. MOHLER. I do not know.

Mr. THURSTON. Because they complain sharply about their losses from the cows being vaccinated.

Mr. HART. I think that is a coincidence.

Dr. MOHLER. Oh, yes; there is no doubt about that.

Mr. HART. It is just a coincidence that they lose their calves at that time. A few years ago in Michigan there was not generally very much known about this contagious abortion. I have in mind a business man, a friend of mine, who had quite a fine herd of cattle up near Alpena, and he sold them to a fellow in Midland for breeding purposes, and it turned out that they had contagious abortion. He had never heard of it. He found out that they had a disease of that kind, and he sued him and collected $3,000 from him.

Dr. MOHLER. It is a very dangerous disease. In fact, I have been trying to get some of this emergency money to help reduce the amount of butter in storage, and the cheese that cannot be sold, and the surplus milk, by using these funds to start work on buying positive reactors to abortion, thus reducing this disease and the surplus dairy cattle at the same time..

Mr. CANNON. There is no better way of expending that fund, Doctor.

Dr. MOHLER. Most of these aborting cows have been good producers. They are good milkers, and you can get rid of a lot of surplus milk by disposing of the abortion reactors through the slaughter method, just as we do in tuberculosis.

Mr. CANNON. Slaughtering is the only remedy.

Dr. MOHLER. Yes.

Mr. CANNON. Whenever a cow gets Bangs' disease, or contagious abortion, there is just one remedy, and that is the abatoir.

Dr. MOHLER These average farmers that try to separate the diseased from the healthy can do so to a certain extent, but the chain is just as strong as that weak link. When they go from the infected herd to the clean herd, carrying the germs in the manure on their

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