"266 CONTAGIOT'S DISEASES OF DOMESTICANED ANIMALS. 



ill England wutclies with greater care. Our system of large lierds and 

 <3attle ranches has no parallel in the cattle culture of the United King- 

 dom. Its spread here would, if it should get full headway, compare 

 with that abroad as does the sweeping tire of the prairie with that of a 

 city block, where the provisions for extinguishment are ready to the 

 hand. Well may all owners of cattle urge the National Government to 

 exercise its preventive discipline over importation and all movements 

 of cattle from the seaboard, all the more because recently a new demand 

 has sprung' up in the West for young stock from the East. The transpor- 

 tation which has heretofore been toward the seaboard is now likely to 

 be met by a counter-current to be inland west, since the stock-breeding- 

 there does uot supply the demands which the fields of space in the mid- 

 dle land between the oceans provides for the feeding and fattening of 

 young cattle. 



We scarcely need to emphasize the application of the same precau- 

 tions as to those diseases of swine and sheep which are equally de- 

 structive to these smaller flocks, and which alike imi)eril interests in 

 which large cai)ital and great commercial enterprises are involved. 

 The census of 1880 gives as for the United States 10,.'i57,488 horses, 

 1,812,808 mules and asses, 12,443,120 milch cows, 90;3,841 work oxen, 

 22,488,550 other cattle, 35,192,074 sheep, and 47,081,700 swine, or an 

 aggregate of, or about, 331,000,000 In all. When we consider that the 

 yearly increase is constant, we ought not to need extended argument to 

 show that the sums expended in competent investigation and in skilled 

 oversight of these iuterests, if honestly and intelligently expended, is 

 among the very best investments the General Government can make. 

 Perhaps the lack at present is more in competency of observation and 

 in tried and successful methods of protection than in a recognition of 

 the desirability of such oversight. But as a demand creates a supply 

 we are already seeing Harvard University and the University of Penn- 

 sylvania with veterinary departments, Toronto and Xew York with 

 worthy veterinary colleges, and the American Public Health Associa- 

 tion giving it prominent consideration, the medical profession alive to its 

 im])ortance and co-operating here with something of the same spirit 

 and ability with which in England the foremost member of the Eoyal 

 College of Physicians and Surgeons is found conducting and aiding in 

 investigations of a similar kind. 



It is only by a combined and continued system of surveillance that 

 we can hope to prevent or arrest the wandering epizootic pi stilence or 

 those enzootics which spring up in locnlities and are dependent upon 

 causes which, although difficult of detection, are, in the light of the past 

 few years, likely soon to be unraveled. By such a course, and by put- 

 ting- on record the facts and experience obtained by skilled local observ- 

 ers, we shall succeed in arresting- or abating many of the vagrant 

 diseases, and thus greatly appreciate both the wealth, the comfort, and 

 the health of our peojile, and be able to furnish the markets of the Old 



