ANNIJAL, MEETING. 57 



this disease. We have no open season, and if we had the disease could 

 not spread from one place to another except by being carried directly by 

 the affected cattle. It can not be borne by wind or water or any other 

 element that is not under our control. The public sentiment, however, is 

 such that any measure for stamping out, whether rational or not, would 

 be tolerated and never questioned. 



Hydrophobia or rabies is a much more serious affection, but who would 

 be willing to indorse the extermination of the worthless curs that kill 

 $80,000 worth of sheep annually, besides propagating this disease and, I 

 might add, make their owners poorer? An interesting case promises to 

 develop in an action to recover from the township the value of- fourteen 

 head of cattle (lost out of a herd of thirty-eight) the result of the bites of 

 a rabid dog. If action will stand for sheep kiUed it ought to stand for 

 rabies communicated. 



I have cited these few cases to show that with a proper public senti- 

 ment a dangerous disease may be practically stamped out or the losses 

 resulting be made so small that they scarcely figure to the fifth place in 

 numerals. Without this sentiment a disease of far greater importance 

 may be allowed to run riot. While we do not do all that we know how to 

 do, it is possible that this conservatism keeps us from doing things which 

 we do not know how to do well. 



In my opinion the first essential necessary for the better control of 

 these diseases and thus lessening tlae losses is to distribute accurate and 

 not exaggerated information upon these things which we do know and can 

 do. This will assist in securing a proper public appreciation of the desira- 

 bility for doing something, and remove prejudice. The means is largely 

 through the agi'icultural press and through the action of such bodies as 

 this one. 



The second is in the encouragement of a better class of veterinary 

 practitioners throughout the State. The last General Assembly passed a 

 veterinary practice law exceedingly liberal in requirements or qualifica- 

 tions, reasonable in intent but unfortunately, through faulty construction, 

 almost inoperative. It is not strange, howevei-, that the very people who 

 would be most benefited by its provisions are the ones to give it the most 

 severe censure. The time has passed when men who have so little knowl- 

 edge of anatomy that they could not tell an incomplete skeleton of the 

 horse from that of the cow, or who depend upon Mayhew's illustrated stock 

 doctor or the advertisement of Kendall's spavin cure or international stock 

 food for their therapy, should be permitted to criminally torture and ruin 

 any one of our animals that represents a part of the $80,000,000 invested in 

 them. I have letters in my possession from men, stating their qualifica- 

 tions for practice that base their great knowledge and worth to the com- 

 munity upon the fact that they had read works that were out of press 

 fifty years ago and were obsolete to all except the antiquarian twenty-five 

 years ago. The law has had some good effects, and may it be stx-engthened 

 and not weakened. 



