CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 125 



than the veteriuariau, but to-day iu the veterinary schools of Europe 

 the subjects receive as ample attention as in the medical. 



In some cases the bureaucratic element tends to the subversion of the 

 veterinary, and men whose only knowledge of veterinary matters come 

 rem consulting the writings of some one veterinarian will pass judg- 

 ment upon the advice of the most skilled expert, and even decline to 

 employ it. It is for the jurist to formulate and promulgate the laws, but 

 it is his duty to base these on the best counsels of veterinary medicine. 



To maintain a satisfactory system not only must the veterinary sani- 

 tary work in departments and cities be carried on by veterinarians, but 

 there must be at the seat of power a veterinarian or commissioner of 

 veterinarians as a centralizing point for all that relates to the veterinary 

 service, and for the direction of that service. As countries in which 

 such centralization exclusively veterinary has been secured may be 

 named Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, some of the southern Ger. 

 man states, Saxony, Bavaria, Baden, and Alsace Lorrain, Portugal, and 

 Belgium. In Austria there is a consulting committee on epizootics, but 

 which occupies itself with prevailing maladies alone. In the depend, 

 ent Austrian states the Landesthierarzt is a simple member, sometimes 

 a simple agent of the sanitary council. In Prussia there is not even a 

 chief veterinarian in relation to the minister, who only consults the 

 technical dei)utation in which veterinary science is represented. In 

 each provincial government of Prussia a departmental veterinarian or 

 assessor is attached usually to the medical council as councilor (referee) 

 for veterinary service. In France the veterinary element now predom- 

 inates in the superior committee of epizootics. In England the privy 

 council veterinary department has three veterinarians in a body of six 

 members. In Switzerland, attached to the department of agriculture, 

 is a veterinary' commissioner of epizootics as counsel on the whole sub. 

 ject of federal veterinary police, but he has no voice as to the compe- 

 tence of cantonal authorities. In Italy there is no central veterinary 

 officer, and the bulletin of epizootic statistics is compiled from data fur- 

 nished by municipalities. 



After considerable discussion the following was passed with only four 

 dissenting votes : 



To organize iu each couutry a veteiiuary sauitary service, charged exclnsively 

 with all that pertains to this service, of which the members, all veterinarians, shall 

 be councilors of all branches of tlie administration, but which shall be especially rep- 

 resented near the central authorities, where the chief veterinary othciiil shall be sta- 

 tioned. 



SECOND RESOH'TIOK. 



In regard to this the reporter pointed out the impropriety of binding 

 the Government to employ as its local expert the veterinarian who hap- 

 pens to be in attendance upon the infected herd, the danger of such a 

 person (carrying infection to other herds in the round of his practice, the 

 suspicion, usually unmerited, that he may hide infection in the inter- 



