REPORT ON DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
237 
which it had lost, all that had been expended on it would be 
forfeited, and there would be much less likelihood of a speedy 
resumption of the work. If even the work were only retarded for 
lack of means, as has been the case in New York for the past 
three months, if the executive could only quarantine infected 
herds and partially control the movement of cattle, but could not 
kill the sick for want of means to indemnify the owners for their 
losses, a most hurtful blow would be dealt to the entire svstem of 
national sanitary legislation and administration. In either case 
the most prominent fact before Congress and the people would be 
that so many hundred thousand dollars had been expended for 
the extinction of a plague which, when the next appropriation 
was requested, either prevailed as widely as at first or was only 
appreciably less prevalent. All representations that the want of 
success had been due to the lack of means would receive little 
attention; the community would conclude it better to squander 
no more money on the matter; all further veterinary sanitary 
legislation would probably be rendered hopeless; no small amount 
of opprobrium would be thrown on the National Board of Health 
itself, and a severe blow would be dealt to all national health 
legislation. 
It is especially fortunate that, by reason of the active measures 
carried out in the first six months of our work in New York, we 
can now point to seven counties virtually cleared of the pestilence, 
and by later restricting our work to controlling movement of 
cattle, we have been able to prevent any renewed extension of 
the pest; yet with a little more means New York might have 
been to-day all but clear of this scourge. 
The time may come when the nation will be sufficiently 
educated to allow the sanitation of man and animals to be con¬ 
trolled by a single National Health Board ; but at present, and 
for the exclusively animal plagues, we cannot afford to run any 
♦ risk, and that method should be followed which will secure a 
certain and speedy result, and establish the principle of the ex¬ 
tinction of such pestilences on a sound und unassailable basis. 
I would therefore urge as the result of mature deliberation, in 
view of all aspects of the question, that the control of these 
