“The Tubercular Cow Must Go”: Business, Politics, and Winnipeg’s Milk Supply, 1894–1922

This paper analyzes the Winnipeg health department’s campaign toeliminate tuberculosis in dairy herds supplying milk to the city. It examines thecomplexity of creating dairy policies at a time when there was no consensusabout the role that Mycobacterium bovis played in the etiology of tuberculosis inhumans, and when dairy producers and consumers often resisted regulationsthat increased their costs. The article argues that the scientific debates about the regulation of the city’s milk supply enabled physicians and veterinarians toenlarge their professional practices; that the benefits and costs of the dairy policieswere not equally distributed; and that Winnipeg’s milk supply remained vulnerableto both deliberate and accidental contamination throughout this period.