A PLEA FOR VETERINARY SURGERY. 
173 
in a single year, (1876,) of no less than $20,000,000. It is the 
province of veterinary science, acting with government authority, 
to attempt the extinction of this plague, and there can be little 
doubt that at a small expense comparatively, this malady may be 
crushed in the bud in whatever locality it may show itself. Be¬ 
side our other indigenous plagues and parasitic diseases in domestic 
animals, we are continually threatened with foreign animal conta- 
gia, against which we have no reasonable protection. The pres 
ent treasury orders on this subject, admit all “ blooded ” animals 
on the strength of a consular certificate of soundness, which is 
only equivalent to a free invitation to animal diseases in general. 
The only safe position to occupy in this matter is that of a care¬ 
ful examination of every imported animal by a veterinarian, of a 
quarantine under veterinary supervision, and of such a'duration 
as will exclude the possibility of the dreaded disease being har¬ 
bored by the subject, of a thorough disinfection of the surface of 
the imported beast, and of all articles used about it, and finally 
of the systematic destruction of all fodder and litter imported 
with such animal. The limited character of our importations of 
live stock, would allow of such restrictions without any percepti¬ 
ble injury to commerce, or to our national prosperity ; and the 
ever threatening dangers against which they would secure us, are 
in their nature almost illimitable as to extent and duration. The 
most insidious, and therefore the most dangerous of all cattle 
diseases, {lung fever ,) we now harbor in our midst, and while it 
makes slow progress owing to the opposing current of cattle 
traffic from the west, and the want of temptation to transport our 
common eastern cows into the cheaper western herds, yet it is 
steadily encroaching on new territory, and now numbers its victims 
among several high class herds. Any day a bull from one of these 
thoroughbred herds may be sent west for the improvement of the 
native stock, and may thereby introduce this disease into our un¬ 
fenced stock ranges, when it will be practically impossible to 
eradicate it. The same malady imported into the open stock runs 
in the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, swept the herds off in 
a rapid destruction, and successfully resisted all efforts to extin¬ 
guish it. The same holds good with this and other plagues on 
