72 WASTAGE OF ANIMALS IN WAR. 



and particularly when appetites are depraved or sharpened by 

 want. It was no uncommon sight to see animals eat sand as if 

 it was a bran mash, Sand Colic and its prevention formed the 

 subject of special instructions, and in the matter of expedient 

 for prevention I think there was little left to the imagination. 

 Space will not admit of a description of the many devices. 



Contagious and Specific Diseases. 



Of all the causes of wastage the contagious element of disease 

 is by far the most serious and important. Communicable 

 diseases in animals are so numerous and varied in their character 

 that they demand of Veterinary Service the utmost vigilance 

 and the most profound skill it can command through its officers 

 in prevention, control and suppression. An exact knowledge is 

 required of all contagious Diseases, and the life history of their 

 causal agents scientifically put into operation the means of 

 combat. It is par excellence the Veterinary Officers' War. The 

 study of Contagious Disease is an absorbing and fascinating one, 

 and with full knowledge of cause and effect the modus operandi 

 of control becomes easy to the expert. In War the badness of 

 things always asserts itself, the hand of control is by force of 

 circumstances slackened, and the vast movements of men and 

 animals conduce to the spread of evil elements. There are also 

 new "bolshevics" of disease that spring up as specifics in our 

 midst, of obscure origin, that bother us intensely at the moment 

 and then disappear as mysteriously as they came. It is a funny 

 World ! The World's a stage in more ways than one, and we 

 are actors. When contagious disease "takes the floor" we have 

 to be pretty quick actors and to know our parts. 



Glanders and Farcy. — -Enter; The old Napoleon that scourged 

 Armies — killed by a Staff College graduate, Mallein, that has 

 the prescient faculty of nipping operations in the bud and dia.g- 

 nosing the situation before danger arises ! 



Through the agency of Mallein we now have no trouble with 

 this disease. The latest method of Testing for the detection of 

 Glanders in its latent form is by the injection of special Mallein 

 into the lower eyelid. A reaction indicating disease is easily 

 detected, no temperature taking is necessary, and animals can 

 perform their work while under the test — a very important 



