H4 



cro-organisms to disease. And when we consider the 

 problems already half solved, the questions to whose so- 

 lution the way appears open through the same methods 

 already successfully applied to anthrax and tuberculosis, 

 we may hope for results to which present knowledge 

 shall seem a mere introduction. But these results can 

 be secured only by earnest, skilful, continuous experi- 

 mental investigation, which is practically impossible with- 

 out pecuniary support. In France and Germany such 

 support is liberally supplied by the government ; in the 

 United States, where human life is certainly as valuable 

 as there ; where live-stock interests are already greater 

 than in these countries combined, and must multiply 

 many fold in the immediate future ; where a single infec- 

 tious disease of cattle has caused the loss of $20,000,000 

 in one year, and a single disease of hogs the destruction 

 of $30,000,000 in the same time: where infectious dis- 

 eases are so prevalent among live stock that the fear of 

 infection has closed European markets against American 

 meat and cattle the government of this great common- 

 wealth, which advances enormous sums for local river 

 and harbor improvements ; which sends expensive com- 

 missions over the world to observe the transit of Venus 

 or of the moon ; to find an open Polar sea ; and engages 

 in other undertakings of purely scientific interest, has not 

 yet made on.e judicious, systematic, liberally supported 

 inquiry into the possibility of acquiring protection 

 against pleuro-pneumonia, hog-cholera, and other de- 

 vourers of the national wealth. A glance at the Im- 

 perial German Health Bureau and its work during the 

 last four years, and a mental comparison of the pecu- 

 niary resources of Germany with those of the United 

 States, inspire the hope that we shall not always lag so 

 far behind in matters which appeal to the tenderest spot 

 of the American anatomy the pocket. 



In concluding these lectures, Mr. President and gen- 

 tlemen, I shall offer no apology for their fragmentary 

 character, since I would not call attention to defects al- 

 ready amply apparent. Yet I venture to hope that one 



