100 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



REPORT OF THK STATI) VETERINARIAN 



FOR 1906. 



Harrisburg, Pa. , January 1, 1907, 



Honorable N. E. Critchiield, Secretary of Agriculture, Ilarriabiirg^ 

 Pa.: 



Sir: I have tbe honor to submit tlie following report on the 

 work of the office of (he State Veterinarian and upon the work of 

 the State Livestock Sanitary Board for the year 1906. 



In order that the distinction between the work of office of the 

 State Veterinarian and the work of the State Livestock Sanitary 

 Board may be clear, I will refer briefly to the history of these 

 offices. The office of the State Veterinarian is established by auth- 

 ority of the Act approved March 13th, 1895, entitled ''An act to es- 

 tablish a Department of Agriculture and to define its duties." The 

 same act places certain responsibilities upon the Department of Agri- 

 culture with regard to distributing information upon the raising and 

 care of livestock and the supervision of the health of animals. The 

 same legislature enacted a law entitled "An act to establish the 

 State Livestock Sanitary Board, and to provide for the control and 

 suppression of dangerous, contagious or infectious diseases of 

 domestic animals." This act was approved by the Grovernor May 

 21, 1895, that is, more than two months subsequent to the approval 

 of the act organizing the Department of Agriculture. The State 

 Livestock Sanitarv Board, as established under the second act re- 

 ferred to, is composed of the Governor of the Commonwealth, the 

 Secretary of Agriculture, the Dairy and Food Commissioner and 

 the State Veterinarian. This Board is authorized to protect the 

 health of the domestic animals of the State and to determine and 

 employ tlie most efficient and practical means for the prevention, 

 suppression, control or eradication of dangerous, contagious or in- 

 fectious diseases among domestic animals. . For these purposes, 

 the Board is clothed with certain powers in relation to establishing 

 and maintaining quarantines, the disinfection of certain localities 

 and articles and the destruction of animals, as it may deem neces- 

 sary. It is also clothc^d v/ith additional powers and duties under 

 later Acts of Assembly. 



The distinction, then, between the office of the State Veterinarian 

 and the State Livestock Sanitary Board is that the general subjects 

 in relation to the health of animals that concern individual owners 

 and that touch upon the general welfare of animals and animal 

 husbandry, fall under the act organizing the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, and are assigned by the Secretary of Agriculture to the State 

 Veterinarian. On the other hand, the control of dangerous, con- 

 tagious or infectious diseases of animals — the diseases that spread 

 and that are of importance to a community and to farmers whose 

 animals are as yet unaffected — fall under the jurisdiction of the 

 State Livestock Sanitary Board. In other words, the State Voter- 



