392 
EXTRACTS. 
E XTRACT S. 
SANITARY VETERINARY INSPECTION—A VETERINARY INSPECTOR 
OF LIVE AND MEAT. 
By C. M. Welds. 
No doubt quantities of unhealthy and even badly diseased meat is 
sold annually in our large cities, and particularly in the group of cities 
around and including New York. 
It is a fact, for which we cannot be too thankful, that several of the 
diseases which are such scourges to the cattle of Eurqpe and Great Bri¬ 
tain, are much less virulent here. There is some quality in our dry 
atmosphere in summer, or in the zero-cold of our winters, which 
seriously interferes with the vitality of this very disease (lung murrain) 
as also of the “ Foot and Mouth ” disease. This should not, however, 
lead us to be less careful, for some day a disease might be imported 
which would sweep off our herds as the lung murrain did those of South 
Africa, where it was introduced in 1855, and in two years had traveled 
1,300 miles, literally sweeping the immense wealth of neat cattle off the 
face of the earth. We need a 
GOVERNMENTAL INSPECTION OF INCOMING CATTLE. 
The people are deceived by certain requirements of the govern¬ 
ment. Orders are issued to our consuls abroad, as to certificates of 
health, etc., but so far as I know, and I certainly am in a way to know, 
a sick animal can be just as easily landed in New York as a well one, 
and, I think, easier. There is no barrier to the introduction of disease 
from foreign ports into the ports of the United States. 
We had a wholesome scare two or three years ago about the rinder¬ 
pest, but like soldiers under fire, though the danger is as great now as 
it was then, we have long since given up the idea of protecting our¬ 
selves against it. What the results of an outbreak of the disease in this 
country would be, no one can tell. Like a fire in .the woods, which 
now laps up the dry leaves, and stays only in some rotten stump or hol¬ 
low tree, and again sweeps away miles of heavy timber, leaving nothing 
but charred stems and drifts of ashes, the coming disease may go by 
doing us little damage, or it may well-nigh annihilate our herds. Are 
we ready for the experiment ? 
Hitherto, the American system has left the protection of the people 
against the introduction of disease by water, to the several States which 
establish more or less efficient quarantine regulations at their various 
ports. The natural dread of “ the pestilence which walketh in dark- 
