1904.] Report of the Animals Division; 



1 57 



This volume* contains a review of the proceedings of the 

 Animals Division of the Board in the form of Reports by the 

 Chief Veterinary Officer and by the As- 



Anta&DivSon. sistallt Secretar >' » charge of that division. 



The Chief Veterinary Officer, in the 

 opening paragraph of his Report, observes that there is some 

 satisfaction in being able to congratulate the owners of stock 

 on the entire freedom from such diseases as the cattle plague, 

 pleuro-pneumonia, and foot-and -mouth disease, while the public 

 may also find some consolation in knowing that rabies in dogs,, 

 which for many years had annually caused the death of numbers 

 of human beings from hydrophobia, no longer exists in this, 

 country. These results have been achieved partly by the 

 application by the Board of those extended powers granted by 

 Parliament for preventing the introduction of disease from 

 without, but chiefly by the prompt and decisive measures 

 adopted for stamping out the diseases mentioned. 



In order to appreciate the advantages, economic and otherwise, 

 which the owners of stock and all persons connected with 

 the trade in animals have obtained by the extirpation of these 

 diseases, Mr. Cope points out that it is necessary to consider 

 the extent to which they at various periods have prevailed, in 

 this country, and his Report contains a review of the history 

 of cattle plague, pleuro-pneumonia, foot-and-mouth disease, and 

 rabies during the last half of the past century. 



With reference to the increase in the number of outbreaks 

 of glanders which took place in 1903, Mr. Cope draws attention 

 to the fact that the application of the mallein test is now 

 accepted to be so reliable that in many of the large horse- 

 keeping establishments in London, glanders has been eradicated 

 from the studs by the slaughter of every animal which reacts,, 

 and what is still more important, these studs have been kept 

 practically free from glanders by rejecting every horse that 

 reacts before it is introduced into the stud. This, it is observed,, 

 is a material fact which cannot be ignored, and is founded 

 upon such a sound basis that if the system could be applied 

 to all suspected horses throughout the country glanders 



* Ajinual Reports of Proceedings of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries 

 under the Diseases of Animals Acts, &~'c„for 1903. [Cd. 2006.] Price 11 d. . 



