380 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
been in Europe, and had seen the success of the institutions then 
a few decades old, wrote a letter to the Agricultural Society of 
Philadelphia, and urged the importance of adding a Veterinary 
Department to the University. He called attention to the agricul¬ 
tural prospects of the country, and his letter was*discussed before 
the Society in 1807, but nothing practical was done. Our do¬ 
mestic animals have steadily increased in number and in value 
since that time. We had in 1852, horses, 5,000,000; cattle, 17,- 
000,000; sheep, 22,000,000; swine, 30,000,000; value, $600,- 
000,000; and to-day we have in the United States, horses, 10,- 
838,111; value, $765,041,308 ; mules, 1,871,079; value, $148,- 
732,390 ; milch cows, 13,125,685 ; value, $396,575,405 ; oxen, 
&c., 28,046,477 ; value, $611,549,109. Total cattle, 41,171,762 ; 
value, $1,009,114,514; sheep, 49,237,29 L; value, $124,365,835 ; 
hogs, 43,270,086 ; value, $291,951,221—a total of 176,488,329 
animals, representing a value of $2,338,215,268 ; and there are, 
perhaps, in the United States only some 500 veterinary surgeons 
who hold certificates showing that they are properly qualified to 
practice. An importation of the Russian rinderpest into the* port 
of New York would probably be followed by the destruction of 
thirteen millions of cattle, or three hundred million dollars’ worth 
of property in twelve months. 
Valuable breeds of animals have been imported and developed 
here until individual horses, cows and sheep reach the enormous 
value of thousands of dollars. With the increase in the number 
of animals the ordinary accidental and sporadic diseases have of 
course increased in the same ratio, but with the augmented num¬ 
ber of valuable animals wanted here and there over the country 
for breeding purposes, with the increased number of horses sent 
to the large cities for motors, and the thousands of cattle shipped 
for food in dirty, non-disinfected cars and boats, the increase of 
traumatic and contagious diseases have been in much greater pro¬ 
portion. Our Government lias not done the first thing toward 
furnishing men capable of combating these scourges; even in the 
army the handful of veterinary surgeons are not recognized as 
officers, and have so little authority that on an outbreak of glan¬ 
ders they have not the power to condemn or sequestrate an animal 
