INTERNATIONAL VETERINARY CONGRESS. 



UEPORT OF DR. JAMES LAW. 



Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the Inter- 

 national Veterinary Congress at Brussels and the European Veterinary 

 Schools : 



In accordance with the call issued by the committee of arrangement, 

 the Fourth International Veterinary Congress met at Brussels on Sep- 

 tember 10, 1883. There were present 311 veterinarians, of whom 218 

 were Belgians, and 93 from other countries of Europe and America. 

 The congress remained in session seven days, and engaged in the dis- 

 cussion of the following subjects : 



1. The organization of veterinary service. 



2. Contagious pleuropneumonia of cattle. 



3. Education in veterinary medicine. 



1. The right of the veterinarian to furnish medicines. 

 5. Pulmonary phthisis. 



1. THE ORGAJ^IZATION OF VETERINARY SERVICE. 



This subject was ably presented b;^ Zundel, of Strassburg, the reporter 

 of the committee appointed to introduce it. 



The veterinary profession can no longer be estimated only or mainly 

 by its knowledge of therapeutics and its success in curing disease, other- 

 wise it would be to the pecuniary interest of the veterinarian to keep 

 the community in ignorance of the causes of diseases, epizootic, and 

 sporadic, while he fattened on the proceeeds of an extended practice. 

 But to-day it is the glory of the veterinary profession that it is pre-emi- 

 nently a sanitary and preventive body. It can point to day to the com- 

 parative absence from European flocks and herds of those plagues which, 

 but a century ago desolated the countries at frequent intervals; it can 

 show pastures now^salubrious, which were formerly pregnant with the, 

 seeds of death ; it can offer immunity to the system from poisons whose 

 touch was heretofore deadly ; and it can show how to extinguish in 

 animal hosts the causes of disease, which, when conveyed to man, would 

 entail extended suttering and death. 



By his knowledge of zootechny, the veterinarian contributes to the] 

 improvement of the different races of domestic animals: by liisknowl-j 



VZ'i 



