484 Journal of Agria/lfnrc. [8 August, 1907. 



II. POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF VETERINARY 



SCIENCE. 



11'. T. Kendall, M.R.C.V.S., Principal, Melbourne Veterinary College. 



Had the Chamber of Agriculture served no other purjiose than that of 

 obtaining a proper recognition of Veterinary Science by the State it would 

 still have justified its existence. P'ortunately its able and persistent ad- 

 vocacy of those claims was brought to bear upon a Minister whose training 

 enabled him to appreciate the value of applied science and the result has 

 been the establishment of a nucleus of a State Veterinary Department under 

 the direction of Mr. S. S. Cameron, M.R.C.V.S. Another outcome has 

 been the decision to provide for State Veterinary Education in connexion 

 with the University of Melbourne, and the establishment of a Research 

 Institute where diseases of animals will receive scientific investigation. 



The value of these inno'vations can only be estimated when we consider 

 the enormous losses the country has sustained in the past for want of 

 them. It was owing to the absence of veterinary inspection and quarantine 

 regulations that scab in sheep, pleuro-pneumonia in cattle and other infec- 

 tive diseases were allowed to be introduced by imported animals, and make 

 such ravages amongst our flocks and herds ; and it speaks well for the 

 effectiveness of fhe system now adopted that no serious disease has since 

 gained a footing in this manner. 



Notwithstanding this there never was a time when greater vigilance 

 was needed than now. The increasing trade relations and rapid transit 

 Ijetween Australia and South Africa, South America, India, Japan, Java 

 and the Philippines, where more serious diseases exist than any hitherto 

 experienced here render due precautionary measures imperative. I need 

 only mention cattle plague, horse-sickness, nagana, glanders, epizootic 

 lymphangitis, dourine, surra, and mal de caderas among the diseases 

 affecting domesticated animals in these countries to show the extreme risk 

 we are running. 



The greater danger is from travelling circuses and menageries for, 

 although the animals may be free from disease, they are travelling about 

 in countries where infective diseases exist and may become bearers of 

 infection. Some years ago- glanders was found to exist among horses 

 connected with an American circus which were about to be landed in 

 Sydney, and had it not been for the vigilance of Mr. Stanley, the Govern- 

 ment Veterinarian, the disease would in all probability have been well 

 established in Australia. Fortunately it was correctly diagnosed in time, 

 the diseased animals were slaughtered and the rest quarantined on an 

 island so that they ne\-er reached the main-land and were re-shipped to 

 America. 



There should be uniform quarantine regulations in all the States or, 

 better still. Federal quarantine laws. In the event of any disease showing 

 itself in imported animals, or even a suspicion of such, the shortest 

 methotl of dealing with it should be made possible ; for, like putting out 

 a fire, everything depends upon an early start and no round-about red 

 tape methods would allow of this. The possibility of disease being intro- 

 duced from abroad by other means than by diseased animals was proved 

 a few )ears ago when two^ or three outbreaks of anthrax were traced to 

 feeding the cows on bone meal made from imported bones. There is, 

 however, no further risk of this as such bones have now to be sterilised 

 before distribution. 



