390 
A. S. HEATH. 
ORIG INAL ARTIC LES. 
[Written specially for the American Veterinary Review.] 
FOOD—ITS AGRICULTURAL AND ANIMAL INDUSTRY 
ASPECTS DISCURSIVELY DISCUSSED. 
By A. S. Heath, M.D.,V.S., Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Robert E. Wait, B. A., Private Secretary to the Assistant 
Secretary of Agriculture, gives a most valuable account of the 
work of the Department as illustrated at the late Atlanta Expo- 
position, as well also such as may be found in the Department 
Year Book for 1895. I shall use these sources of information 
freely in this article. Our domestic food-animals, like our 
crops, are so nearly associated with agriculture, and are like 
man so subject to disease, that the Department of Agriculture 
may properly be regarded as the grand embodiment of national 
hygiene. And yet, justice and truth must broaden its sublime 
title to universal hygiene ; for do we not, and is it not our na¬ 
tional destiny to feed the world? Human hygiene has been 
aptly defined as the art of preserving health ; that is, of obtain¬ 
ing the most perfect action of body and mind during as long a 
period as is consistent with the laws of life. In other words, it 
aims at rendering growth more perfect, decay less rapid, life 
more vigorous, death more remote. In a broader sense, it cov¬ 
ers the vast fields of our sound and healthy food supplies from 
every source, from our fields of grasses, and grains, and vege¬ 
tables, and flocks and herds, and all the products of all of these. 
For all of these are liable to disease ; and the hygiene of food 
supply presupposed the prevention as well of the various dis¬ 
eases of these as well as the cure. The most hopeful prospect 
of treatment is the prevention. This prevention as deeply con¬ 
cerns the agriculturist as the physician and the veterinarian. 
Prevention then,, is the philosophy and poetry of the sublime 
arts of hygiene. The beneficent arts of agriculture lay deep 
and strong the broad foundations for healthful food-supplies, 
