326 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



heard from, I am liappy to say, nor shall we ever expect to 

 meet them on the medical arena again, unless we receive 

 another visitation of this same calamity. 



From this you perceive the necessity for the public encour- 

 agement of veterinary science. Your attention was practi- 

 cally called to this subject a year ago by the sudden invasion 

 of that equine pestilence. As it came upon us so unawares 

 we were not prepared, professionally, to battle with such a 

 scourge. And as this plague swept over the country, like its 

 allied forms in the middle ages, the medico-veterinary wisdom 

 of the nation could but humbly bow at the geograpliical 

 magnitude, and unparalleled severity within historic time, at 

 least upon our virgin soil. 



We saw in this calamity only the financial phase of our 

 dependence on the lower orders of animals for comfort and 

 support. But what would have been our condition had this 

 disease involved our neat stock, sheep and swine, or our 

 poultry, as it was falsely rumored, in the same putrid, fever- 

 like form? Yea, a panic-stricken dearth would inevitably 

 have followed ; for we are dependent upon the flocks and 

 herds of this latitude for many articles of our wearing-apparel, 

 besides the animal products of our daily food. Suffering and 

 death would then have followed in an untold degree. Thou- 

 sands upon thousands of our puny children must then have 

 died for want of food. All the milk would have been dis- 

 eased and thus unfit for human use. 



I ask, therefore, in view of such a scene, if the veterinary 

 art is unworthy of our attention ? Can we possibly spend our 

 time in a more useful and important field of labor than to 

 search for the causes of all such dreadful maladies? We 

 have thus been forcibly admonished of our unjust apprecia- 

 tion of the equine race in all of our domestic and commercial 

 relations of life, and of our negligence in regard to the care 

 of this noble animal. And hence we trust that the severity 

 of this epizootic malady will long be remembered by our 

 people, and thus awaken a renewed interest in behalf of 

 veterinary education. 



Again, there are various forms of contagious and malignant 

 diseases to contend with among the other domesticated ani- 

 mals. All of these maladies affect our meat-producing crea- 



