314 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



vvliencv(M' ho may consider such disinfection necessary in order to 

 prevent the sj)re:ul 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 ship- 

 ment 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 le^slation prohibiting the interstate ship- 

 ment of young calves, which, on account of their inability to eat 

 .solid food and their refusal to drink water, are sometimes kept for 

 oeveral days without nourishment. 



REGULATION OF VACCIINES, ANTITOXINS, ETC. 



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

 antitoxins, tuberculins, and other preparations for the detection, pre- 

 vention, 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, some of these preparations, including both 

 domestic and imported products, as found on the market, have been 

 shown by the bureau's investigations to be lacking in potency and 

 therefore worthless, or not properly standardized, or even contami- 

 nated or harmful. Such preparations are not only a fraud but a 

 menace. Biological remedies when properly prepared are very useful 

 in veterinary medicine, and their Held is constantly widening, but 

 there is need for official supervision and control. It therefore seems 

 very desirable that the Secretary of Agriculture should be given legal 

 authority to control the importation of such products and to super- 

 vise the preparation of those manufactured in this country for inter- 

 state commerce, such authority to be similar to that already vested 

 in the United States Public Health Service with regard to similar 

 products for use in human medicine. 



SALE or PATHOLOGICAL AND BIOLOGICAL SPECIMENS. 



It is recommended that authority of law be given to the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture to sell at coat such pathological and biological 

 specimens as the Secretary o^ Agriculture may deem of scientific or 

 educational value \o scientists or others engaged in the work of 

 hygiene and ca,nitation, all moneys so received to be deposited in the 

 Xrea'="^y of the United States. 



INSPECTION OF DAIRY PRODUCTS. 



In previous reports attention has been called to the need of inspect- 

 ing dairy products, especially cream and butter, and supervising 

 their shipment. Even without inspection many creameries maintain 



