No. 4.] CATTLE COMMISSIONERS' REPORT. 413 



giving him full directions as to how the herd should be man- 

 aged. The sick animals are ordered to be carefully separated 

 from the diseased ones, certain other sanitary precautions are 

 advised, and the matter is then left to the management of the 

 local inspector and the owner of the herd in which the out- 

 breaks have occurred. As this is a cural)le disease, the commis- 

 sion believes that such a procedure as this one is all that is 

 required. 



Laboratory. 



Since October, 1892, the Board have constantly felt the need 

 of having a pathological examination made of certain portions 

 of animals that have been sent to them from the diflerent 

 inspectors throughout the State ; questions that could not be 

 answered except as a result of laboratory examinations of such 

 portions ; and it has been their custom since that time to refer 

 all questions of this sort to Professor Whitney at the patholog- 

 ical laboratory of the Harvard Medical School. As the work 

 has iione on, the number of these examinations that it was 

 found necessary to have made increased considerably, so much 

 so that under former arrangements the entailed expense was 

 becoming considerable. In view of this fact, together with the 

 fact that a orgeat deal of valuable time was lost in sendino; 

 specimens over to the laboratory and in receiving replies con- 

 cerning them, it was determined by the Board to establish a 

 laboratory which should be entirely under its own control, and 

 the third floor of the building in which their offices are located 

 was obtained, and has been fitted up for this purpose. 



Payment for Animals Destroyed. 

 One of the most important provisions in the law enacted by 

 the Legislature in 1894 relates to the payment of compensation 

 to the owners of neat stock which are destroyed by order of 

 this Board as afl'ected w^ith tuberculosis. This provision in- 

 volves a radical change in the policy of the State in these 

 matters, growing out of a better understanding of the hardships 

 which the ao^ricultural citizens of this State miaht sufier when 

 radical measures for the suppression of this disease were put 

 into operation, in consequence of the enactment of the law of 

 1894. The portion of the law of 1894 relating to this matter 



