94 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



REPORT OF the; STATE) VE^TKRINARIAN. 



Harrisburg, January 1, 1902. 

 Hon. John Hamilton, Secretary of Agriculture : 



Sir: It is with pleasure that I furnish jou the following review 

 of the work that has come to me as State Veterinarian and as Sec- 

 retary of the State Live Stock Sanitary Board for the calendar year 

 terminating December 31, 1901. 



The year has been one of great activity and progress in respect 

 to the development of knowledge of the diseases of animals and to its 

 practical application. There has also been a marked and gratifying 

 increase in interest in suppressing the diseases of animals, due, in 

 part, to a fuller realization of the losses that come from such diseases, 

 and in part, to the evidence that a successful warfare may be urged 

 against them. 



In the subject of tuberculosis, this increase in interest has been 

 very great. A cause that helped to bring this about was the British 

 Congress for the study of tuberculosis, held in Loudon last Jul}'. 

 At this congress experts gathered from all parts of the world to 

 discuss this most widespread and destructive of all diseases. The 

 current knowledge of the subject was well reviewed and summar- 

 ized and several notable contributions to the pre-existing fund of in- 

 formation were offered. 



If not the most important at least the most sensational paper pre- 

 sented at the London Congress was that of Dr. Eobert Koch, of 

 Berlin. In this paper Dr. Koch cited certain experiments he had 

 made in co-operation with Dr. Schuetz, wherein he had attempted to 

 produce tuberculosis in cattle and other animals by inoculation and 

 feeding with sputum from consumptives. These experiments indi- 

 cated to him that tubercular sputum from persons is not especially 

 virulent for animals of some species and notably for calves. From 

 this observation he drc^w the deduction that animal and bovine tuber- 

 culosis are not the same disease nor so closely related as to be inter- 

 communicable. This dogma was opposed in the congress by Nocard 

 of France, by Bang of Denmark, by Lister and McFadyean of Eng- 

 land, by Thomasseu of Holland and by Kavenel of Pennsylvania. 

 Before the close of the congress a resolution was adopted in which 

 was recommended the continuation of all efforts to protect the jjublic 



