704 PBOCEEDINGS OF SECTION K. 



As time went on and the population began to increase, a higher 

 state of domestication became inevitable. The larger holdings 

 were fenced off into smaller ones, the freedom of the animals 

 became more restricted, there was less choice in the matter of 

 feed and water, &c. Seasons of scarcity occurred and checked 

 the growth of the young animals and weakened the resisting 

 powers of the mature ones against disease. Parasitic diseases, be- 

 came prevalent and caused heavy losses. Further, and perhaps 

 less discriminate, importations took place, and the time occupied 

 by the voyage became lessened. Scab was introduced amongst 

 sheep from Tasmania. Outbreaks of malignant catarrh occurred 

 in New South Wales as far back as 1834. In 1847, anthrax, then 

 known as Cumberland disease, made its appearance on the Lep- 

 pington estate, near Campbelltown, New South Wales, and in 

 1876 the first extensive outbreak occurred in Victoria. How or 

 when the disease was first introduced is not known, but, when in- 

 vestigating the cause of an outbreak in a dairy herd near Geelong 

 some fifteen years ago, I expressed the opinion that it had been 

 introduced with bone meal which had been given to the cattle as 

 a remedy for cripples. I took a sample of the meal to Dr. Cherry, 

 then bacteriologist at the University of Melbourne, who confirmed 

 the conjecture I had formed by making cultures of the anthrax 

 bacilli from the meal. This meal was made from a shipment of 

 bones that had arrived from India a short time before. Two 

 other outbreaks occurred in the Dandenong district through using 

 bone meal from the same source. 



In 1858 contagious pleuro-pneumonia was imported by a cow 

 which was diseased when landed, and died within six weeks, having 

 in the meanwhile infected the herd of the importer. In 1870 

 an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease occurred amongst cattle. 

 Tuberculosis, tick fever, blackleg, and white scour, contagious 

 abortion, epizootic ophathalmia in cattle, braxy, foot-rot and 

 caseous adenitis in sheep, swine fever in pigs, strangles and in- 

 fluenza in horses have successively appeared, besides many others. 



Various indigenous diseases, due to dietetic and other causes, 

 have also from time to time caused heavy losses, and since dairying 

 and closer settlement have been introduced many, both enzootic 

 and sporadic, diseases have become prevalent. 



Pioneer Veterinary Surgeons. 



The first veterinary surgeons to arrive in Australia were mostly 

 men who, like others, had caught the gold fever, or were allured 

 by prospects of successful stock-raising or wool-growing. A few 

 no doubt came for health reasons. With the exception of one or 

 two in Sydney and Melbourne, who carried on a more or less 

 precarious practice in connexion with shoeing businesses, there were 

 no veterinary surgeons practising except a few unqualified men. 



