VETERINARY SCIENCE. 
17& 
man who insures his property against fire and tornado, or his 
person against death or accident; the railroad corporation that 
hauls his produce to market; the bank in which he deposits his 
money; the dentist who pulls his teeth ; the physician who 
treats himself and family, and druggist who compounds his 
medicine are all subject to statutory provisions, but when sick¬ 
ness and plague attack his flocks and herds and threaten their 
destruction, and endanger even the lives of his family, the law 
reaches out no guiding hand. The unprincipled and ignorant 
charlatan has an unchallenged standing before the law and often 
by his brazen effrontery and “ stud-horse ” advertisement enjoys 
a more generous patronage than his educated, competent and 
honorable rival. 
It seems to me, therefore, that one thing the people of Iowa 
need is protection—legal protection against this dishonorable 
and dangerous class of pretenders, and you will pardon me gen¬ 
tlemen, if I suggest that it has seemed to me that you have been 
somewhat disposed to waste a good deal of ammunition in criti¬ 
cising some of your own advanced methods of experimentation, 
diagnosis and treatment rather than in closing up your ranks 
and making the united effort you should to secure the standing 
before the law you are so justly entitled to. 
But enough on this point. Your “ Relation to the Public 
Health ” is a most important one, and is so far recognized by 
the State as to provide for the appointment of a State veterinary 
surgeon, and to make him a member ex-officio of the State Board 
of Health. 
The State Board of Health and the Dairy Commission have 
large claims upon you. I hope the time will soon come when 
the latter, if it does not have it now, will have ample authority 
and financial aid to enable him not only to determine the butter 
fat in a given quantity of milk, for commercial purposes, but the 
sanitary quality of the milk, butter and cheese. I would go 
much further. I would not limit his function to the dairy, but 
I would make him a dairy and food commissioner, with adequate 
legal and financial backing to do thorongh work. However, to- 
