COMMUNICABLE ANIMAL DISEASES. 
767 
had a foothold in certain counties of this State, and at one time 
bade fair to invade the whole country ; threatening the animal 
industry of the nation ; entailing great money loss to a large 
part of the people. It did not take long for the people to reach 
legislative halls and secure proper State and national legislation 
for the suppression and the extermination of the plague. New 
Jersey is so situated geographically and the animal traffic so ex¬ 
tensive that the work of extermination became no trifling mat¬ 
ter. Our State Board of Health was ever diligent in stamping 
out new outbreaks and in limiting extensions of the disease, but 
it was practically impossible to prevent fresh introductions of 
the contagion without federal aid, which was not withheld. 
The work of extermination of contagious pleuro-pneumonia 
soon became a national question and the professional talent and 
the executive ability of that distinguished veterinarian, Dr. D. 
E. Salmon, the Chief of the United States Bureau of Animal In¬ 
dustry, was equal to the occasion, and the animal wealth of the 
nation has been protected and that dreaded plague exterminated 
from the United States. 
I have alluded hastily to these facts connected with the ex¬ 
termination of pleuro-pneumonia contagiosa in the United 
States to show that the people of this country are not slow to 
protect the wealth of the nation from an animal plague. In the 
matter of contagious pleuro-pneumonia it was solely a financial 
question, as above indicated, for no one ever heard of a human 
being contracting bovine contagious pleuro-pneumonia, whereas 
in the case of many of the other contagious animal diseases, the 
health and the very lives of the people are endangered if proper 
sanitary and limiting measures are not adopted and if safeguards 
are not heeded regarding the meat and milk supply. It is an 
old saying that “ health is better than wealth,” but it seems to 
me that the truth of this saying is sometimes lost sight of by 
our people in their enterprise and the multiplicity of their 
affairs. 
The caring for the contagious animal diseases in this State 
has during past years been entrusted to the State Board of 
