SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
117 
Reports of County Secretaries. —The following were heard 
from : Drs. Turner, Magee, Noack, Cawley, McKenna, Timber- 
man, Oyler, Stanton, Conard, Bradley, Foelker, Sallade, Lusson, 
Collins, Irons, and Tintz. Many furnished lists of all graduates 
and non-graduates registered in their counties. 
Report of Committee on Sa 7 iitary Sciejice and Police. —Dr. 
Pearson (chairman) made the following report: 
November 2d, 1897. 
Mr. President and Gentle 7 nen : 
As chairman of the Committee on Sanitary Science and Police, I beg to submit to you 
the following report on the infectious diseases of animals as they have come under my ob¬ 
servation during the past year and to make some statements in reference to the work of 
the S. L. S. S. B. 
The State Live Stock Sanitary Board has at this time been in operation for approxi¬ 
mately one year. The State Veterinarian was appointed on January i, 1896, and the board 
was organized and its rules and methods were formulated shortly thereafter. It was not, 
however, until about this time last year that active work could be undertaken, so that my 
present r port relates chiefly to observations that have been made since our last annual 
meeting. 
The extent of the work that has been done during the past year and the rapidity with 
which it has grown indicate the manner in which the operations of the State Live Stock 
Sanitary Board have been accepted by the owners of animals and by the veterinary pro¬ 
fession. 
Inspections have been made in nearly every county of the State; in some counties they 
have been very numerous. It is gratifying to note that applications for assistance from the 
owners of animals afflicted with contagious diseases, particularly tuberculosis, are most 
numerous and are increasing in numker most rapidly from those sections in which the most 
work has already been done. 
A large number of diseases have been brought to the attention of the Live Stock Sani¬ 
tary Board, among which I wish to mention the following as being of special interest and 
importance. 
Cor 7 i-stalk Disease. —Corn-stalk disease is an affection which has prevailed extensively in 
the corn-growing districts of the West, and particularly in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, for a 
number of years, but very few outbreaks have been reported from the Eastern States, and, 
so far as I know, the disease has not been recognized in Pennsylvania until the present sea¬ 
son, During the past few months several outbreaks of disease among cattle have been re¬ 
ported and investigated that were characterized by the following features : excitability, 
abdominal pain, disinclination to move, constipation, weakness, paralysis and death. In 
every instance thus far it has been possible to determine that cattle thus afflicted were fed 
on corn-stalks that were in a mouldy condition. In one outbreak that I looked into re¬ 
cently in Lebanon County it was found that six cattle had died. During the day they were 
kept in a yard that was littered with corn-fodder from a stack in an adjoining field. The 
fodder was very mouldy and the stalks were thickly coated with a grayish mould near the 
base offthe leaf. The yard was cleaned up and the use of this fodder was discontinued, 
since which time there has been no recurrence of the disease. 
This disease has been the object of a special investigation conducted under the auspices 
of the United States Bureau of Animal Industry, but it has not yet been determined whether 
it is due to the infection of the animal by a fungus or bacterium that exists in the corn- 
fodder or whether the disease is a toxaemia resulting from the ingestion of the chemical 
substances produced by the organisms that multiply in corn-fodder under certain con¬ 
ditions. 
Dr. Edwin Hogg, of Kirkwood, Lancaster County, successfully treated six cows 
afflicted with this disease, while an equal number in the same herd died. His treatment 
consisted in administering Glauber’s salts and the use of atropine subcutaneously. The 
paralyzed animals were raised in slings twice a day and kept up for a short period each 
time. 
