CAUSES Of wastage. ef 



weeks being admitted. From the 15th February to the 31st 

 March the weather increased in severity, there was more move- 

 ment of trbops and a corresponding increase in the cases of 

 Debility, 3,639 being recorded for the last two weeks of 

 February, and 9,427 for the month of March. During April 

 and particularly during the first two weeks (including Easter 

 week) the bitterest weather conditions prevailed. Unfortu- 

 nately too, an enforced reduction of ration had for some 

 time previously existed, and with 196,000 animals engaged in 

 the very arduous offensive operations in front of Arras at that 

 time, the toll of Debility and Exhaustion rose to an un- 

 precedented degree. 20,319 were admitted during the month. 



With the advent of better weather, diminution of work, and 

 an augmented ration, the admission during May and June 

 dropped to 3032 and 1253 respectively. 



This represented the period of our most serious loss from 

 Exhaustion and Debility. Conditions of service at the front 

 and the strain to which animals were subjected were practically 

 indescribable, and not the least of our enemies was the 

 appalling weather which prevailed during that Easter time, as 

 if the God of all Hosts rose up in rebellion against the very 

 name of War perpetrated by Man. 



We found also at that time, on making post-mortem 

 examinations of animals dying from debilitating and exhausting 

 conditions, that Gastro-enteritis was common, a severe gastric 

 ulceration sometimes existed, similar in a marked degree to 

 the mouth lesions of Contagious Vesicular Stomatitis which 

 appeared amongst our animals in the early days of 1917, the 

 intensity of which was increased rather than diminished by the 

 severe cold of the winter and spring. In one month alone we 

 had 2596 cases of this disease under treatment in isolation in 

 Veterinary Hospitals. Its gravity lies in its extreme con- 

 tagiousness, and the loss that occurs in the condition of animals 

 from their 'inability to feed. It was only through the greatest 

 vigilance on the part of Veterinary Officers, with isolation of 

 cases, and separate watering arrangements by means of water 

 buckets and improvised small watering troughs .made from 

 mens' ground sheets, that the Front could be kept clear ; and 

 there is no doubt that this very ugly disease played a consider- 

 able part in the wastage of the spring of 1917 from Debility. 



