SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
517 
Mipt. Frank ° Clarke, of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
tor having kindly furnished data from their various departments. 
According to the police census taken some five or six months ago, there are 3i,Sc;o 
horses, and about 3,000 milch cows in the county. The general health of this number of 
animals has been exceptionally good during the last year, and were it not for a rather vio- 
lent outbreak of glanders in the early part of the season, and the extremely hot spell in the 
line die of August, I am satisfied that the mortality would have been much lower than the 
average. 
Influenza existed to some extent early in the spring and presented itself in rather a 
mo ent form ; but was chiefly confined to sale stables and green stock in general. 
Infectious pneumonia broke out in the Government stables at Fort Hamilton in the 
early spring, and out of about sixty horses, eighteen were taken with the disease, fifteen 
of which made good recoveries in two or three weeks’ time ; and three while convalescing 
from pneumonia developed rheumatism, two of which recovered fully within a week or 
two and one remained badly crippled. 
Osteo-poroSis continues to crop up in all classes of horses, but chiefly in comparatively 
}oung animals kept in old and badly ventilated stables, generally situated on the ground 
floor, and without any drainage ; about fifteen well-marked cases came under my obser¬ 
vation, some of which were destroyed and others were disposed of by their owners upon 
stables 6 ’ tW ° CaSeS S ° dlsposed of are re P orted as convalescing in other locations and 
Purpura hemorrhagica, pleuro-pneumonia, azoturia, cerebro-spinal meningitis and colics 
carried off the usual number. 
Metastatic laminitis following acute indigestion, pneumonia or influenza, was unusu¬ 
ally common this spring and left quitq,a number of my patients in such a condition as to 
render destruction of life advisable. 
The extreme heat of last month caused very heavy losses in Brooklyn ; and dead 
horses were found on every street owing to inability of the contractor to remove them fast 
enough. 
^ )r \^^ erman states that of two hundred and fifty-eight cases reported to the Depart- 
mem of Health as glandered, farcied or suspicious, one hundred and fifty-two were found 
to t ,e so affected and accordingly condemned and destroyed. In my own practice prob- 
nbly tlurty cases came under my observation ; the mallein test was employed in all cases 
. ere the symptoms were not sufficiently developed to warrant positive conclusions and 
m two stables where glanders had existed for a long time and broke out periodical^ all 
animals were tested ; those showing a reaction of two degrees or over, and the typical 
swelling at point of inoculation, were destroyed, and in probably twelve cases where no 
external symptoms of any description could be detected, post-mortem examinations were 
made and lesions indicative of glanders were found in every case ; yet seven horses which 
had been among a lot of glandered animals for months, and reacted on the mallein test 
from three to five degrees, but were otherwise apparently in good health and showed posi¬ 
tively not the slightest indication of glanders that could be detected on physical examina¬ 
tion, were allowed to live and have been carefully watched since last March or April 
when the mallein injections were made. At this writing, which is six months after the 
test, five of these animals appear to be still in good health and are doing their ordinary 
work ; one was destroyed as glandered some three months ago, and one has been quaran¬ 
tined as a suspicious subject for the last two months. Is it possible that the germs of 
g andet sare lying dormant all these months in those five horses that are at work ? Or did 
the mallein injection have a curative effect? Or is mallein not altogether reliable as a 
means of diagnosis ? 
Dr. Wm. H. Pendry, in his official report to the Department of Health, states that less 
than 3 per cent, of the 3,000 milch cows in Kings County are affected with tuberculosis 
a . s tar as can be detected by physical examination, but qualifies this by saying that most of 
the cows are of the common hardy variety, frequently changed and retained by their 
owners only as long as they milk well, and failing in that are fattened for slaughter. He 
speaks of tuberculin as a most reliable diagnostic agent for tuberculosis, and advocates 
in the strongest terms that this test be applied to all dairy herds. 
Dr. E. L. Volgenau, United States Inspector under Bureau of Animal Industry ex¬ 
amines all cattle killed at the Hudson Avenue Abattoirs. He reports that of 2,720 head 
