M.— AGRICULTURE. 233 



made since September 1880, exactly 50 years ago, when Evans, the 

 ' Inspecting Veterinary Surgeon ' of the Government of Madras, was sent 

 to the Punjab to investigate this disease, and when he succeeded, in a 

 remarkably short time, in discovering its cause. Since then much work 

 has been done, especially by Nieschulz in the Dutch East Indies, on the 

 transmission of this disease, and good progress has also been made in 

 regard to the drug treatment. 



It is with great satisfaction that the fact can be recorded that this 

 veteran of science, Griffith Evans, the discoverer of the first pathogenic 

 trypanosoma, is still alive to-day, with more than four score years and ten 

 to his credit, and is able to watch, from his home in Bangor, the progress 

 which has been made in this field of work. 



One further trypanosome disease should be mentioned here, namely, 

 Dourine. Known for about 150 years, this disease has been responsible 

 for very heavy economic losses to horse breeders in Europe and other 

 countries. With the aid of modern methods the disease was eradicated 

 from most of the closely settled and well organised Western European 

 states. But in the vast open spaces of Canada and other countries, its 

 eradication proved to be a much more difficult problem. It was only 

 when Watson in Canada succeeded in perfecting a delicate diagnostic test 

 for the detection of the infection, that the eradication of the disease could 

 be attempted seriously, and the results of the subsequent campaign in 

 Canada have been entirely satisfactory. It should be added that Watson's 

 success has stimulated further research into the problem of diagnosing 

 other trypanosome infections by serological methods. A fair amount of 

 success has attended these efforts and quite recently Robinson at 

 Onderstepoort has reported further progress in the serological diagnosis 

 of Trypanosoma congolense infection. 



2. Piroplasnioses. 



Under this heading are included diseases like Redwater or Texas Fever 

 of cattle, Biliary Fever of dogs and horses, ' Gallsickness ' or Anaplasmosis 

 and East Coast Fever of cattle. 



Their aetiology was completely obscure until Theobald Smith and 

 Kilborne in America, in a series of brilliant researches extending over the 

 years 1888 to 1892, succeeded in elucidating the nature of the first-named 

 disease. Not only did these investigators discover the causal organism in 

 the blood of infected cattle, but they also proved that the disease was 

 transmitted by ticks and that the infection passed through the egg of the 

 tick from one generation to the next. All this was completely new to 

 Science ; it was the first time that the transmission of a mammalian 

 disease through an invertebrate host had been proved experimentally. 

 This contribution to science by two veterinarians is worthy of special note. 



Theobald Smith, like Griffith Evans, is still able to-day to watch the 

 progress of the work which he initiated many years ago. In the case of 

 ' Redwater ' great advances can be recorded. The direct method of 

 attack is eminently satisfactory, thanks to the discoverj^ by Nuttall and 

 Hadwen in 1909 that the drug Trypanblue has a specific action on the 

 parasite of Redwater of cattle and Biliary fever of dogs. The treatment 



