SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
159 
busy one for those whose duty it has been to conduct the affairs 
of this Association. These months of hard and earnest work, 
on the part of your worthy President, Legislative Committee 
and others, has at last been crowned with success. This Asso¬ 
ciation may well feel proud of what it has achieved through its 
committee, officers and members during the past year. 
To the committee whose task it has been to draft and secure 
the passage of these bills—one for-the establishment of a “ State 
Board of Veterinary Examiners ”—another for the establish¬ 
ment of a “ State Live Stock Sanitary Board ”—we, as well as 
the people of this city and State, owe a deep debt of gratitude. 
Their labors have been arduous and fraught with innumerable 
obstacles. At the time of the drafting of this bill for the estab¬ 
lishment of a State Live Stock Sanitary Board there were in 
the field not less than three other bills—all asking for the 
establishment of some form of a State commission. These bills, 
it seemed, aimed more particularly to benefit one class of people, 
or those who advanced or supported them. 
Your committee found also a large portion of the farming 
community arrayed against them, or the veterinarians, owing 
partly to unwise and untimely orders issued by the Board of 
Health, and partly to the powerful influence of men high in 
office, who, at the same time, enjoyed the confidence of a large 
portion of the farmers, and who, for some selfish reason, set 
about to poison the minds of the farmers, and array them against 
the veterinarians of this State, leading them to believe that the 
object of the veterinarians’ bill was aselfish one. Then, again, there 
was the all-powerful press arrayed against them. Influential papers, 
not only in this city and State, but in other States, were used to 
defeat this bill. And this is not all. The Cattle Commission of 
Massachusetts had at that time entered upon a crusade for the 
extermination of tuberculosis in that State through the use of 
tuberculin as a diagnostic agent. This had aroused the farmers 
of Massachusetts from one end of the State to the other; and 
being in an experimental stage, the opponents and enemies 
took advantage and made all they could of it, in turning the 
farmers and people of this State against our bill, fearing that 
the veterinarians of this State would pursue much the same 
course by the use of tuberculin. This was the condition of 
affairs in this State when your bill for the establishment of a 
u State Live Stock Sanitary Board ” was presented to the Legisla¬ 
ture for enactment. These obstacles had to be met and over¬ 
come. Fortunately, gentlemen, we had one great advantage 
