No. 4.] CATTLE COMMISSIONERS. 435 



ders it possible to elevate and improve the service. The 

 Board under the law is also empowered to remove an in- 

 spector, if necessary, and order the appointment of another. 



Tuberculosis is the disease for which the greater number 

 of animals have been killed, and it is also the one which 

 causes the most expense in carrying out the provisions of 

 the law, therefore it will be referred to first in this report ; 

 but glanders and rabies must not be considered as being of 

 very much less importance, when the dangers to human life 

 and the losses the former causes to the horse owners of the 

 State are taken into consideration. 



Other diseases of an infectious character with which this 

 Board has to deal are Texas fever, hog cholera or swine 

 plague, actinomycosis and symptomatic anthrax. 



The pathological and bacteriological work of the Board has 

 been performed, as in the past two years, at the Harvard 

 Medical School, by Dr. Langdon Frothingham, except that 

 during a few months last summer while he was in Europe it 

 was done at the laboratories at Bussey College, Forest Hills, 

 by Dr. Arthur W. May, through the kind permission of Dr. 

 Theobald Smith. For the laboratory facilities during the 

 summer, and the kindly and valuable advice Dr. Smith has 

 ever been ready to give the Massachusetts Cattle Commis- 

 sion, the renewed thanks of this Board are here given. 



The Board was represented by its chairman at the annual 

 meeting of the Interstate Association of Live Stock Sanitary 

 Boards, held at Chicago, October 11 and 12, and was the 

 only New England cattle commission represented. At this 

 meeting the interests of the delegates from the south and 

 south-west seemed to be centred in Texas fever ; but those 

 from points north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi 

 rivers appeared interested in diseases similar to those that 

 we are likely to meet with in Massachusetts, as the condi- 

 tions of agriculture in these states more nearly approach 

 those of our own. The conference of the different cattle 

 interests represented, together with the papers read and the 

 discussions resulting from them, could not be otherwise than 

 of mutual benefit to all present. 



