74 The Farmei's Veterinary Adviser. 



inoculate against eacli of the other animal plagues now exist- 

 ing in the land ? The radical and thorough extinction of 

 these plagues, which, to their credit be it said, the better 

 class of our veterinarians have consistently advocated, has 

 for its purpose the speedy removal from the land of all need 

 for preventive measures apart from those aimed at the pre- 

 vention of renewed importation of infection, and such ex- 

 tinction is therefore the only method that looks toward the 

 lessened remuneration of veterinarians as a body. In the 

 face of these facts does not their consistent advocacy of ex- 

 tinction of contagion savor more of public-spiritedness than 

 of the selfishness so slanderously attributed ? 



For the instructed and high-minded veterinarian the ques- 

 tion is mainly one of political economy. It is simply a ques- 

 tion of how we can, at the cheapest rate and in the shortest 

 period, rid ourselves for ever of our pestilential enemy, and 

 at once abolish all future loss and worry coming from this 

 source. There is only one answer : £y the prompt and 

 remorseless extinction of every germj of contagion. We 

 need make no account here of the sacredness of life. The 

 killing of an infected and infecting animal is not murder. 

 We entertain no such feelings concerning the tens of thou- 

 sands of animals that die daily under the knife of the 

 butcher, and the lives of which might have been prolonged 

 with safety to others. Why should we hesitate to sacrifice 

 the few, whose systems are multiplying by inconceivable 

 myriads the germs that are so deadly to others of their race, 

 and which in the case of several plagues are now costing the 

 country more every year than it would take to exterminate 

 them once for all ? The question is essentially one of dol- 

 lars and cents. The only moral elements that enter into it 

 are the questions of the remuneration of the stockowner for 

 the animals expropriated for the public good, and the pro- 

 tection of the public at large from the consumption of dis- 

 eased and often dangerous meat and milk. The last qnes- 



