BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 201 



The department assumes no direct authority or control over the 

 veterinary colleges; it merely undertakes, in conjunction with the 

 Civil Service Commission, to prescribe certain requirements for 

 admission to the examinations for veterinary positions in its own 

 service with a view to obtaining the services of qualified men. In 

 order for the graduates of a college to be eligible to such positions 

 the college must provide the required facilities for instruction. 



NEEDED LEGISLATION. 



As indicated in previous reports, further legislation by Congress is 

 needed in order to enable the department to exercise efficient control 

 over certain matters in the interest of the live-stock industry and for 

 the public good. 



With the growing use in veterinary practice of vaccines, serums, 

 antitoxins, tuberculins, and other preparations for the detection, 

 prevention, or treatment of diseases of animals, and the increasing 

 imports of such products, there is constant danger that contagious 

 diseases may be introduced from abroad and cause great damage, 

 as happened a few years ago in the outbreaks of foot-and-mouth 

 disease. Furthermore, these preparations, as shown by the bureau's 

 investigations, are sometimes lacking in potency or are not standard- 

 ized. It therefore seems very desirable that the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture should be given legal authority to control the importation of 

 such products and to supervise the preparation of those manufac- 

 tured in this country for interstate commerce, such authority to be 

 similar to that already vested in the United States Public Health 

 and Marine-Hospital Service with regard to similar products for use 

 in human medicme. 



The need for legislation to enable the department to regulate more 

 effectively the interstate transportation of live stock so as to prevent 

 the spread of contagious diseases and provide more humane con- 

 ditions was set forth in my report for the last fiscal year as follows: 



Experience in the enforcement of what is known as the 28-hour law has shown the 

 desirability of exempting in some cases from its operation live stock which is being 

 shipped under quarantine restrictions. Owing to unforeseen delays it is sometimes 

 necessary in order to comply with the law to unload stock which is being shipped 

 under quarantine restrictions into pens which are not specially set apart for that class 

 of stock and which are likely to be used soon afterwards for other stock, and in this 

 way infection has sometimes been spread. This danger could be practically obviated if 

 the Secretary of Agriculture were clothed with power in such cases of emergency 

 to waive the provisions of the law so that animals under quarantine might be kept in 

 the cars for a sufficient time to reach a point where facilities were available for han- 

 dling them without danger to other stock. 



Although existing law authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to require the disin- 

 fection of live-stock cars moving into or out of a section that is quarantined, it is desir- 

 able to have this authority extended so as to empower the Secretary of Agriculture to 

 require the disinfection of any live-stock cars used in interstate commeice whenever 

 he may consider such disinfection necessary in order to prevent the spread of disease. 



In the shipment of live stock it is sometimes a practice to put into the same car 

 animals of various sizes and different species, with the result that small animals are 

 often injured or trampled to death by larger ones. In order to remedy this evil it is 

 desirable that the Secretary of Agriculture should have authority to regulate the 

 shipment of different classes of stock in the same cars. 



Dead animals are sometimes shipped in the same cars with live ones, and there is 

 danger of the spread of disease in this way. Such shipments should be prohibited by 

 law. 



There should also be legislation prohibiting the interstate sliipment 

 of young calves, which, on account of their inability to eat solid food 



